


The Prime Directive

by ARollingStone, HarveyDangerfield



Series: Prime Directive [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Abuse, Alien Cultural Differences, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up Talk, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-07-29 22:09:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20089570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ARollingStone/pseuds/ARollingStone, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyDangerfield/pseuds/HarveyDangerfield
Summary: The crew of the enterprise are sent on an important mission, back to one of the first planets the Federation ever visited, 227 years ago, before the Prime Directive was written into place, to check on how far the species has come since Starfleet's early meddling.Captain Picard and First Officer Will Riker have some issues they need to work out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written with forceofwilll on tumblr~ 
> 
> have no fear, if you find yourself confused as to what "marduk" refers to, you aren't forgetting some part of canon. all will be revealed in time.

Will had been taking a break, at Deanna's behest, when Captain Picard had called them all to the Observation Longue. Really, he doesn't feel like going, but his duties as First Officer come before any sort of emotional turmoil, no matter how deeply wounded he feels, following certain... incidents. So he puts on his best business face, and heads for the turbolift after finishing off his ale in Ten Forward.   
  
Unfortunately, when he steps onto the elevator, he's greeted with the sight of his Captain, who looks grim just as soon as Will steps on, and he returns the sentiment, crossing the threshold of the lift to stand beside Jean-Luc. He doesn't look at him, but instead stands stiffly at his side, and looks directly up at the paneling above them, urging the turbolift to resume course as he does.   
  
He won't be the first to crack between them. Things have been awkward, but he's decided to keep his distance. As promised, he's professional as always, and merely greets Picard with a nod of his head and a brief "Captain," before he looks on at the lift wall, as though it were something truly interesting. He's cold, in a word, which is unusual for Will Riker, but he can't bring himself to be anything other than that, for both their sakes.  
  
Picard's entire body had tensed when Will entered the lift, and he hasn't relaxed yet. It feels impossible to be in such proximity to Will lately, ever since-- well. He told himself he wouldn't think about that.   
  
"Number One," he addresses in return, just as stiffly, without looking in his direction.   
  
He finds himself wishing for once that these damn things came with elevator music, because the silence between them is absolutely deafening.   
  
It used to be that they could joke with one another-- or at least that Will would joke _at_ Picard while the captain pretended to maintain some level of stoicism and decorum while secretly being inwardly delighted by his first officer's antics. It used to be that they could talk about anything and nothing, for hours on end. And it's entirely Picard's fault that they're in the state they're in now. Well, maybe not _entirely._  
  
When the doors finally open he exits the lift at warp 8 just to put some distance between himself and Will, and by the time the first officer makes it to the doors of the observation lounge, the captain is already seated. Around the table are the rest of his friends-- Deanna, Beverly, Worf, Geordi and Data-- the first of whom gives him a look of concern as he enters the room looking already challenged.   
  
Will takes a seat, as ever, to Picard's right and turns to the man himself and asks, "What have you got for us today, Captain?"   
  
His voice is that damned soft, wounded timbre that Picard knows too well. He's heard it before, in secret to Deanna, whispered over the loss of some crew member, or uttered when he's given something too much thought. It's a voice that makes it difficult for Picard to feel anything but guilt, but he must push forward, and work through this.  
  
"We have been given an extraordinarily important assignment, direct from Starfleet command," Picard says, tapping a button at his station that blinks an image of a planet up on the screen. "This is the planet Draconoquis. It has been under Federation quarantine for two hundred and twenty seven years, following a disastrous First Contact attempt made that long ago by Starfleet when it was in its infancy, before the Prime Directive was written into conduct."  
  
"Before?" Geordi sits forward. "That's a planet Starfleet messed with?"  
  
"_Messed with_ is putting it mildly, Mr. LaForge," Picard answers. "This was the last in a short line of planets that were visited between the years of 2135 and 2141 before the Directive was written, this one and nine others were all visited by us in those six short years, all of whom we attempted to play God with. Starfleet had good intentions, as do we all, but their early meddling cost the natural growth of these ten worlds forever."  
  
"So what do they want us to do?" Beverly asks, eyeing the planet on the screen.   
  
"Starfleet is opening the quarantine on this planet, and all nine of the others, to allow one single Starfleet vessel to return," Picard explains. "Command is looking to write a doctrine explaining to current and future Starfleet officers exactly why the Prime Directive is so crucial, to be taught as a mandatory course in the academy. We have been asked to visit this planet for an extended stay of one month, during which myself and a small team of my selection will beam down to the planet's surface and record in explicit detail how the lives of the people here have been changed by humanity's early meddling."  
  
"They tried to make First Contact with a species before they even had space flight?" Will lifts his brows, and breathes out a heavy sigh. "They certainly were doing things differently back then. So we're to live among them? Study how their way of life was affected?"  
  
"Indeed. Command wants no detail left out. I've been given instructions to put together a limited team of only 20 people, and you are a part of that. I want the six of you to select two ensigns of your choosing, and inform them of the mission parameters. We are to bring nothing planetside with us, save our phasers and communicators, and offer the locals our full cooperation on all matters."  
  
"Who _are_ the locals?" Worf asks.   
  
"A race of intelligent creatures known as the avrialle," Picard answers. "They are rather large, from what I've been told, so prepare yourselves for that. I would like to avoid being rude if we can, please."  
  
Will makes some kind of face, but keeps the comment to himself, instead opting to ask, "We can't take anything with us? Not even a change of clothes? That's a little primitive, isn't it?"  
  
"From what I understand, we will be provided with clothing appropriate to their culture when we arrive," Picard says. "What that culture _is_, I have no idea-- nobody does, not even Starfleet Command, the quarantine of this planet and the other nine like it applied even to the highest order. This contact will be our first look into the culture of these people in nearly two and a half centuries... I could not begin to guess what life is like on the surface now."  
  
"You don't have _any_ information?" Deanna asks.   
  
Picard sighs. "I only have hints from the communique I exchanged with the planet's..." he sighs again, louder. "King."

"King?" Data repeats, immediately intrigued.  
  
Will looks at Picard and grins, "You don't sound very happy about that, sir."  
  
"According to the records, when Starfleet made First Contact with the avrialle 227 years ago, the indigenous population was in their stone age," Picard says. "The fact that they now have not only a king, but have very specifically chosen the _word_ King, which is a human english word, concerns me, yes. The _concept_ of a king is seen everywhere all over the known universe, in every culture, independently of one another, but they all have different words for it. The Avrialle," he inhales deeply. "Have a _king_."  
  
"I guess this is why Starfleet only makes First Contact with lifeforms who have developed warp-speed space travel, now," Geordi sighs. Worf is frowning and as usual, seems to have nothing to say on the matter, Deanna however does.   
  
"Then their development was tampered with by human interference?" She says, and glances from Picard, to Will. She can sense something happening between the two of them, despite their attempts to be professional, and has been able to for a week now.   
  
"Yes. To what extent, we do not yet know. Gather your ensigns and prepare them, we beam down tomorrow morning, 0600. Adjourned," Picard says, and stands up from the table, making a very quick line for the door in the hopes of getting to the lift before Will has a chance to follow him in a second time.  
  
Deanna watches Picard go like his ass was on fire, while the rest leave at a more leisurely pace, but she stops Will with a hand on his arm when he tries to leave with the others, until it's just the two of them in the room.   
  
"Are you going to tell me what happened, yet?" she asks, and he sighs, expecting her to say something like that. "Don't sigh at me, Will. I have waited for days for you to volunteer some information, I have sensed your pain and wanted to give you your space, but this has gone on for a week now. Every time you and the captain are in the same room, you're both so tense, so desperate to get away from one another. What _happened?"_  
  
"Deanna--" Will says tiredly. "Don't. I promised I wouldn't talk about it. It was just..." he trails off, and sighs under his breath, then brings his hands to rest on her slim shoulders and looks down at her with tenderness in his eyes. "Imzadi...I know you're trying to help, and I'm grateful for your concern, and your attention, but this is something I can't talk to anyone about. Not even you."  
  
Her expression hardens, but not into anger. "Something happened between the two of you, I know it did. When it was just the two of you on that planet a week ago, with Marduk. You were alone together for a few minutes, and since then, everything between you has felt... different. Horrible. Both of you are clawing to get away from one another... and we're all about to beam down to a planet and live with one another in close proximity for a month."  
  
"It's his secret. I can't divulge that to you, it'd be a breech of trust. I would be violating the bond between us." _Whatever remains of it, anyways_\-- he only says so in his head, but he knows Deanna can read his surface thoughts. They're too close, she knows him like second nature. "You have to let this one go, counselor. The captain and I will eventually settle our differences, and things will go back to normal, but right now everything's still too fresh. You understand that, don't you?"  
  
Her shoulders sag in his grip. "I understand it, but I don't like it," she says. "It's supposed to be my job to help people mend their differences. But in this case, considering what happened with Marduk... I can allow you your secrets. Just this once, Will Riker, mark my words, next time I will twist it out of you by force if I must," she says, giving him a sad, sweet smile.  
  
"I don't doubt it," Will chuckles, and he bends down to press a sweet, friendly kiss to her cheek before taking his leave.  
  
"Talk to him, Will!" she shouts after him, but he doesn't even slow down on his way out the door.   
  
Selecting ensigns wasn't difficult for Will. He took it upon himself to grab Wes, since he knew his mother wouldn't pick him in an attempt to avoid favoritism, as well as a promising young woman named ensign Tommend who he'd heard recently was desperate to meet an alien for the first time. With both of them briefed and prepared, Will was getting ready to resign to his quarters for the evening and get some rest facing the arduous mission coming down the barrel- but those plans are interrupted when he's hailed by Picard himself with a request to come to his quarters.   
  
Will gets that sinking feeling again, but it's underscored with an air of hope that he can't shake. However, he tries to be realistic about it, as he steps off the turbolift and makes his way to Picard's door-- he tries to tell himself not to get his hopes up, but Will's never been good at keeping his emotions out of the equation, a fact which his captain has scolded him on numerous times.   
  
Once the bell chimes, Will hears Picard's beckoning voice, and he steps through the doors, which glide shut behind him with a soft hiss. He stands there, unmoving, perhaps a little afraid to move from that spot, and lifts his chin in greeting, "Captain."  
  
"Number One," Picard greets from his spot by the window. He turns to face Will and picks up a pad from his desk, holding it out to the other man. "Please take this around to all the ensigns who have been selected and have them sign a copy of the contract there. I was not informed until just moments ago that Command is insisting that anyone who is going down to the planet to participate in the information gathering should sign this document. I have to beam this back before we leave tomorrow morning, or the entire mission is off and they will replace us with someone else, so be quick as you can. I would do it myself, but I have a meeting in a moment with Science Officer Prendercost of the Gaiaus following our mission last week."  
  
Will takes the pad from his commanding officer and nods once, grimly. "Aye sir."   
  
His blood seems to have gone cold, and all the life appears to drain from him. For the second time in a week, it feels as if Picard has blasted him down from some high place, and laid him low. However often he tries to tell himself not to expect too much, somehow he always does.  
  
Picard sets his jaw at the sight of Will looking at the pad with puppy eyes, feeling a fire burn in his chest. Indignation, outrage-- they're all just masks his true feelings are wearing, but they are masks that will remain in place.   
  
"What's the matter?" he challenges. "You look as though I've delivered wretched news."  
  
"I'm sorry, sir," Will says, and he sounds sincere, at least. "It's just that I'm perhaps not as," his smile is short and fleeting, "practiced as you in these matters. I'm just having a hard time clearing my head after what happened between us, I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve."  
  
Honestly, Picard hadn't expected Will to come right out with it like that. It takes him a bit off guard, and inflames the feelings he refuses to acknowledge.   
  
"I see," he says, quickly recovering. "Well, seeing as I informed you what would happen beforehand, and you insisted on pursuing your own short-term desires regardless, it seems you have brought this upon yourself. It was a mutual failing on both our parts, but if you are expecting or _hoping_ that I will lick your wounded pride for you, I will not."  
  
Picard's words sear hot aganst Will's heart. His brows draw up, and his eyes wrinkle at the corners, but that's all the indication he gives for the time that he's hurting. After he's able to contain himself, he takes a deep breath, lifts his head and gives a single nod, "Understood, sir."  
  
"Appreciated," Picard says, his own voice labored, and his eyes hard. "Now will you go do your job?"  
  
Will just nods, then ducks his head and takes his leave. Picard sags down into the chair behind his desk the moment Will is gone, and hangs his face in his hands, pressing the heels so tightly to his eyes that not a single emotion dare escape them. He only has a few minutes to put himself together for the Science Officer, he won't answer his hail looking like a drowned animal.   
  
When he's outside of Picard's room, Will finally lets some speck of emotion trickle back into him while he walks to the turbolift, tears stinging the corners of his eyes, but he has work to do, so by the time he steps back out of the elevator, he's stone faced and ready to tackle his business.


	2. Chapter 2

Come morning, Picard's group of 20 are set to beam down to the surface of Draconiquis, ready to be the first human feet on their soil in two centuries and some change. Excitement, fear and doubt are all permeating the air of the transporter room as they stand in orderly lines by the walls, murmuring to one another until the officers join them.  
  
As soon as Will enters the room beside Deanna and Data, ensign Tommend bounds of the wall with a grin on her face, blonde hair flying in a cloud around her face. "Commander Riker!" she waves over the shoulders of her peers before dodging a few of them in order to approach him with sparkles in her eyes. "I just wanted to thank you again for this opportunity, sir, and apologize again for hyperventilating when you came to tell me about the mission."  
  
"It's alright, Tommend," Will reassures her, a tired but genuine smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I knew how eager you were to get your foot in the door with human-alien relations, and this really is the opportunity of a lifetime. We always need eager faces in our ranks when embarking on missions like this. We're happy to have you."  
  
She has to physically bite her lip to keep her excitement from coming out as anything but a squeak. Someone shouts "Tommy!" somewhere behind her and she hops in place, looking back over her shoulder. "Thank you again!" she says with a nod before darting back to giggle excitedly with her friends.  
  
It's enough to boost Will's spirits a bit as they wait a few minutes for the captain's arrival. He appears as stoic as ever, and steps up onto the transporter pad in order to put himself a few heads above everyone in the room.  
  
"As you all know by now, the success of this mission is absolutely paramount," he says, clasping his hands behind his back. "For the next month, we will be living in unfamiliar territory with unfamiliar people. I want you all to record everything you see, hear and discover in the holojournals each of you have been provided. You are each assigned to the Officer who selected you, and you will check in with them twice weekly for status reports. Beyond that, each of you are free to decide how to spend your time on the planet, bearing the Prime Directive strictly in mind. I trust all of you to make informed choices about how you will spend this month. The King will meet us at our beaming location, and from there you are on your own. Any questions?"  
  
He spends the next few minutes answering basic questions about where they'll be staying and what they'll expect to see, and then the group is split in half in order to beam down. Picard and Will stand so close their shoulders nearly touch, and the white glitter of the transporter takes them.  
  
When the surface of the planet comes into focus, Picard feels his stomach drop as he realizes in fullness just how severely the avrialle have been damaged by Starfleet's untimely intervention 200 years ago. Surrounding them on all sides is a massive city square, with brick townhouses towering above them from every angle. Cobblestone lines the streets beneath their feet, and smog blankets the sky with skinny, greasy black clouds. Carriages are being pulled down the city streets that branch off the square by beasts resembling a cross between horses and dinosaurs, the size of indian elephants. The scale at which everything around them is built makes them feel like dolls standing in a world built for humans.  
  
And taking one look at the creatures around them, they immediately understand why. The avrialle are gathered around them curiously, anticipating their arrival, with the king himself at the front of the crowd, directly in front of them. The avrialle are, at a guess, 12 feet tall at least, but the king himself appears to be closer to 15. Their skin is a pure, pearlescent white with a pale blue shift in the light, and speckled in all shades of blue and lavender. Their long, thin weasel-like faces are flanked by two pairs of eyes that come in shades of pinks, oranges and golds, and every single one of them in the crowd has a fluffy mane of white-blonde hair. With four arms each and a pair of dinnerplate-sized hooves at the end of every powerful leg in sight, the avrialle are clearly a formidable beast.  
  
However, none of that is the most remarkable thing about the people who stand around them. Each one of them is dressed similarly, in waistcoats and petticoats, cravats and pinafores, bowties and bonnets and more-- every last one of them is dressed in the style of Victorian england.  
  
"Ohhh _shit_," they hear Geordi whisper from somewhere behind them.  
  
"Lords and ladies of Starfleet!" the king throws his four arms out, his cape flowing outwards with the momentum. "It's such an honor to be the first king to welcome your kind back in over 200 years! I am King Albert, and this is my lovely wife, Victoria," he gestures to the woman beside him, wearing a gown that probably weighs more than half the combined Starfleet crew. "Which one of you is king?"  
  
"I am _Captain_ Picard," Picard says as he steps forward. "Not a king, but the closest thing. And this is my First Officer, Will Riker."  
  
"A pleasure to meet you both," Albert says, his words curled with a posh british accent. "Might I say sir, I'm so delighted to hear you've been practicing our accent!"  
  
Picard gives Will a desperate side-eye, already weary within seconds. Will can't help but return that sharp gaze with a grin, tongue literally in cheek. Then, he looks back up at King Albert, and give shim a nod, "It's a honor to be here, Your Highness. Your people certainly seem to be more industrious than we anticipated."  
  
Picard coughs softly from beside Will, as the King's eyes go wide. "I'll forgive you your first blunder, good sir, but you should know the proper way to address my wife and I is _your majesty_. Our children are _your highness_."  
  
"Thank you for your kindness, your majesty. It's been a very long time since our kind has visited," Picard says. "Allow me to introduce you to the rest of my crew--"  
  
He introduces each of his officers in turn, who introduce their ensigns, surely too many names for Albert to remember, but the king patiently listens to every one of them, before leading them to a line of carriages set up for them, with courtesy steps stacked at the side of each monstrous carriage. Each wagon is crafted to carry a person at least a dozen feet tall, so every last memebr of starfleet are left with their legs dangling as they file into the carts in groups of five.  
  
Deanna regards Will with a bit of humor, sitting across from him, Worf and Picard with Data at her side. "Now who's the short one?" she teases, glancing down at his hanging feet.  
  
Will looks down at his legs, then back at up at her with a wounded look, "I'm still taller than you."  
  
She grins cheekily as the carriages start to move, bouncing over the cobblestones on their way to the royal estate, which they're beginning to guess is going to be a castle.  
  
"This is intriguing," Data says as he looks out the window. "In two hundred and twenty seven years, they have managed to perfectly replicate the era of Victorian England aesthetically, on a scale that suits them. How have they managed this, sir?"  
  
"I don't know," Picard answers, clutching the cushion under him, not exactly appreciating the bumpy ride. "By all accounts, it shouldn't be possible. But I suppose we will find out. Thoughts, Number One?"  
  
"It took humans thousands of years to invent the wheel, let alone become industrious enough to have carriages and amenities like those we're seeing here. There must have been something that kickstarted their evolution, maybe a cataclysmic event. The last time we were here was two hundred years ago, even if you gave a caveman the blueprints for a horsedrawn carriage, they wouldn't have the tools to pull it off. It doesn't make sense." Will replies, looking out of the curtained window of the massive carriage.  
  
"If they were forced to evolve," he continues, "it might account for some of this, but they aren't exactly built for the kind of hard labor that it takes to build structures like castles and rudementary machines. The ancient egyptians had pulleys and basic electric lanterns, but by then we'd evolved to understand things like algebra and physics, at least on some scale. Before Starfleet landed here, they were animals weren't they? Capable of sentient thought, but still animalistic. Something must have happened."  
  
"Not quite animals," Data says. "I took it upon myself to look into and memorize the early recordings of the Avrialle people last night, reported by Starfleet two centuries ago. They were closer to cro-magnon, to put it in human terms. They wore basic clothing and lived in small settlements, but they were nomadic and peaceful. They had no written language, no art, no culture... they barely had spoken word. And yet somehow in two hundred years they have gone from that, to this," he looks outside the window beside Deanna, shaking his head. "It is incredible."  
  
"It's incredibly dangerous is what it is," Worf grunts.  
  
"How smart must they be to be able to pull this off in two hundred years?" Beverly asks, watching the city streets go by. "How many generations must they have gone through before getting to this point? Ten at least, right? Maybe their combined intelligence was enough?"  
  
"We can't really judge them by human standards," Geordi chimes in. "We have no idea what their scope of intelligence is, or how fast that would mean they'd evolve under the right circumstance. Every species is different."  
  
"How long until they achieve space flight?" Worf grunts. "Or develop weaponry. It could be... very bad."  
  
"It could be." Will nods. "Or they could develop technologies to better the greater good. It's hard to say--either way, we're not here to impede their progress, Mr. Worf." That earns a grunt from the Klingon.  
  
Within minutes, the castle comes into view, towering and made entirely of stone. It looks exactly like any of them would picture a victorian english castle, with round towers and massive turrets, waving flags and sprawling lawns. The king greets them once more on the front lawn, dividing the crew up into smaller groups to be toured around the grounds by members of his court.  
  
All the officers are grouped together, to be given a tour by the King himself, through the halls of this titanic castle. Everything about this place screams Victorian, right down to the tapestries and paintings on the wall, depicting familiar scenes from earth from the time period, but repainted to include Avrialle rather than humans.  
  
"I must say, King Albert, this is all very... familiar," Picard says as they pass through the throneroom. "Might I ask where you developed your inspiration for all of this?"  
  
"Why, from Webster, of course!" Albert replies.  
  
"Captain Webster was the commander of the vessel that made first contact with this planet," Data explains quickly, for those of them out of the loop.  
  
"Maybe we could learn a little of your history on this tour," Will interjects. "It seems like you have a rich past, even if by human evolutionary standards it might seem brief. What sorts of advancements happened to lead your people to living in luxury like this?"  
  
"The doctrine, obviously," Albert laughs. "All of our advancements come directly from its pages."  
  
"Which doctrine is that?" Deanna asks.  
  
"The one left behind for us by Webster! Surely you know all of this?" Albert looks back down over his shoulder at them.  
  
"There is no record of Captain Webster recording leaving anything behind," Data says. "Either he left something he did not mean to..."  
  
"Or he didn't report it," Worf grunts.  
  
"What doctorine are you talking about, Your Majesty?" Will makes a point of saying it right this time, without hesitation.  
  
"I'll bring you to the chapel," Albert says, leading them through the halls towards a massive set of wooden doors, and into a victorian church with vaulted stone ceilings and sparkling stained glass windows bearing Christian iconography replaced with avrialle figures that decorate every wall. Pews lined with velvet cushions all face the pulpit at the back of the room, situated in front of a glass case holding four very old-looking books.  
  
"These books," Albert says as he mounts the stone steps to the stage. "Were left behind for us by Webster, who--"  
  
"Your majesty!" a breathless voice from the doors catches them off guard, and the group looks back to see what appears to be a nanny in a plain grey dress with a veil over her hair. She gasps at the sight of the humans and bows her head, keeping her eyes towards the ground. "I'm so, so sorry to interrupt your majesty, but Henrietta's begged your presence, milord. Something about a husband?"  
  
Albert sighs wearily. "My youngest daughter," he explains to the group with a soft chuckle. "She's eleven years old and already trying to get me to choose a husband for her. She'll be sullen for weeks if I don't entertain her fancies, if you'll pardon me for just a moment? If you think being King is a challenge, you should try being a father. I'll be back in no less than half an hour. Please, be delicate with the books but peruse them to your liking."  
  
He turns to leave the room with the nanny, leaving the humans alone with the books. They approach the case and find four identical textbooks on human history, the sort that might sit on a bookshelf in a university back on earth. Volumes 12-15, specifically on the history of England from the years between the 1830's and the 1900's.  
  
"Well, there's our answer," Beverly sighs.  
  
"They've been using these textbooks as--" Geordi starts, but is cut off by Commander Riker.  
  
"As religious texts." The commander takes a closer look at them, running his fingers over the glass and shakes his head. "They've built their entire society around these books. Victorian England wasn't exactly our prime, either..."  
  
"Their entire world," Deanna shakes her head. "Shaped by four little textbooks."  
  
"Accessing... there are more than 100 books in this particular series of historical documents," Data says. "They are basing their entire society on a mere fraction of what human history even has to offer."  
  
"This is why I stressed that we bring nothing down with us," Picard says, gesturing at the glass case. "A whole world thrown off its natural course because somebody careless left their _homework_ behind."  
  
"And there's no way we can interfere with it now--the damage is already done." Will says quietly, just in case any of the aliens are listening. He breathes out a heavy sigh. "If Webster could see what he did, I wonder what his reaction would be? To shape a whole world, without even meaning to-- by accident? It's unimaginable."  
  
"Yet here we are." Geordi says.  
  
"I highly doubt Webster himself had anything to do with it," Picard says. "These are not the textbooks of a starship captain, they're the books of an undergrad. He's simply the one whose name has unfortunately been tied to the disaster."  
  
"I wonder if the rest of the ships visiting the other planets are having the same bad luck," Worf crosses his arms.  
  
"It's not so bad," Deanna says, trying to boost the dismal moods of her friends and crewmates. "At least we're on a planet with indoor plumbing and gas lighting. Besides, we aren't going to be punished for what happened here, it happened 200 years ago. Whatever we report isn't our fault, we're just doing the job we've been given now."  
  
"And what a job it has become," Picard sighs. "Counselor Troi, what do you make of this king?"  
  
"I sense great pomposity and arrogance from him," Deanna says, glancing over her shoulder to make sure they're still alone. "But a genuine, abiding love for his children. Not... quite as much so with his wife."  
  
"Well, that was a common hallmark of the era, wasn't it?" Will says, propping his foot up on a wooden stool that's been left nearby, where a scullery maid had likely been cleaning the altar. "That's what they taught us in our ancient history classes in Starfleet academy, anyways. The Victorian era was not a kind period for women."  
  
"Surely they wouldn't have conformed to that as well," Beverly says. "Could they disregard an entire sex group if they were previously equals, all based on four little old books?"  
  
"I don't think we should underestimate the power these four _little old books_ hold over these people," Picard says with a shake of his head. "We should respect their doctrine as much as they do, at least in their company. We don't want to disparage these people, least of all their king who is letting us stay in his home out of the generosity of his... heart? He has a heart?" he glances at Data.  
  
"He has a heart," the android confirms. "Two of them, in fact."  
  
"Of his hearts," Picard rubs a hand over his face with a sigh. "This is going to be a very long month."  
  
Escorted later to their rooms, the crew are all left to contend with how to scale beds which bear mattresses almost higher than their heads, and come morning, they are all taken aside to be measured by seamstresses and tailors, who will make a handful of garments for every ensign and officer alike, to help them blend into society a little more-- not that clothing would really get the job done, considering how impossible it would be to mistake a single human for an avrialle.  
  
A couple days after that, they're all outfitted in proper garb for the times. It was Picard's request that they be given clothing that still conforms to their dress colors, officers in burgundy, engineering and security in gold and science and medical in blue-- just so that the avrialle can tell who they are at a glance if they need them for anything.  
  
While the clothing is beautifully made and well-fitted, Picard can't help but feel like some kind of bird, draped in so much plumage. Burgundy velvet and black silk layered over his body-- he's beginning to feel like a flower or a cake, draped in petals or frosting-- he's running out of analogies but he doesn't like it. He carries himself uncomfortably, trying to get a piece of new, stiff lace on his collar to lay flat for god's sake, when he quite literally runs directly into Riker coming from the opposite direction around the corner.  
  
Taking a step back, Picard looks Riker up and down, dressed in a similar fashion, though slightly less decorated-- probably because Albert sees Picard as their "king." The captain had to fight just to keep a cape from being included into his designs, after all. Riker's silhouette is slightly less frou-frou, but no less outlandish. Picard gets the sense that they're both dressed in costumes, more than actual clothing.  
  
"You look ridiculous," he says, with humor in his voice.  
  
"I feel like a cake," Will admits, seeming to voice Picard's own thoughts. "I can see how women feel about wearing lingerie now--though I have to admit, these waistcoats do cut a dashing figure."  
  
Will runs his hands down the front of his vest, where the neckline of his shirt is cut low enough that Picard can see a stripe of his chest and belly, dark hairs visible through the window. He looks a bit roguish, now that Picard is getting a closer look at him.  
  
"At least lingerie is meant to be seen in private," Picard says, plucking at one of the dangling bits of lace from his coat cuffs that very nearly impedes the movement of his hand. "This is just obscene. How do they get anything done? I'm going to die down here choking on a stray bit of lace that goes down my throat when I try to give an order."  
  
Will grins at him, "But you'll look fashionable doing it."  
  
"And you know how I have always upheld that I wanted to die a _fashionable_ death," Picard says flatly, trying once again to get his collar to lay flat.  
  
"Of course, it's every captain's wish," Will says, doing his best impression of Jean Luc, his voice dead serious, and when Picard looks up at him, his First settles him with an equally serious look, at least for as long as he can before he cracks another smile.  
  
"Very funny," Picard says, though he feels himself coming near to cracking a smile of his own. The crinkle of Will's blue eyes puts a skip in his heart that he would rather not acknowledge. Clearing his throat, all the humor in his own steely eyes drops in a moment. For just a minute there things felt like they were back to normal, but "normal" for them is what put them in the tense, awkward situation they're in now. Picard has to maintain professionalism at all cost, lest they fall back into old habits. "I should be going. I have to meet with the king, and you have to attend to your ensigns first reports."  
  
Without straying behind long enough for Will to get one final quip in, Picard steps around him and makes his way swiftly down the hall, heeled shoes clicking on the stones.  
  
Will is left wondering if he said something wrong, but he tries his best to write it off as Picard just being his usual self, and hurrying along to put duty before fun. Still, as tense as things have been between he and the captain, the sudden shift does leave a sour taste in Will's mouth. They were so close to feeling _normal_ again, for just one moment. All he can do is hold onto hope that this will happen again, and that over time Picard will feel less inclined to step away or disregard it. And that maybe eventually they'll have some hope of getting back to the way things were.  
  
He's distracted when he makes it to his first meeting with his ensigns, where Tommend and Wes are already deep in conversation, but they both snap to attention when Riker approaches, both dressed in fashions similar to Will's-- Wes in a grey peacoat and red vest, and Tommend in a blue gown.  
  
"Sir," Tommend snaps to attention, though Wes is markedly more relaxed, and he elbows her slightly so she, too, relaxes her shoulders.  
  
"At ease, ensign." Will says. "How are things going on your end?" he's addressing them both, but more specifically Tommend, who has been studying the aliens since she'd arrived. "Have you learned anything more about the Avrialle?"  
  
"We've both discovered some unusual things," Wes says. "They try really, _really_ hard to be human, because they're following those books-- you heard about the books, right?"  
  
"Everyone's heard about the books," Tommend whispers.  
  
"Anyway, they're trying to copy us, down to the way we move and talk," Wes continues. "So I think they're studying us as much as we're studying them. They kind of... deify us, in a way sir. It's pretty weird since even the kids are taller than us."  
  
Will shakes his head and rubs his brow quickly, "Studying us...well I guess that's only fair, considering why we're here. Still, it's very weird that they've modeled their entire society after Victorian England. Of all the eras..." the Commander recovers quickly, and shoots them both a smile. "Have you discovered anything else?"  
  
"I did," Wes says. "I decided to go to the edge of the city, to see what was past the civilization, if there was countryside or if it all just dropped off into lava, we really don't know so I thought I'd go out and check. Turns out, there's a big _wall_ around the city. A HUGE wall, at least a hundred feet high, maybe more, made of stone. There were avrialle marching around the top of it like guards... I don't know what that means yet, but I'm going to try and ask if I can get stationed up there with them to learn more."  
  
"A wall?" Will asks, frowning. "That means they're trying to keep something--or someone--out."  
  
They all stand around, considering what that means for a bit. "Good job, Wes." Will smacks him on the arm.  
  
"Or it could mean they're trying to keep something _in_," Tommend says, shaking her head.  
  
"Tell him what you found, Tom," Wes murmurs, nudging her.  
  
"Oh, I'm-- I don't know if it's anything," she says, looking up at Will. "I was probably just out of bounds or something."  
  
"It's alright, Tommend. What did you find?" Will asks, running his fingers over his beard as he listens.  
  
She looks up at him, clicking her teeth. "There was a building they wouldn't let me into. Guards posted outside. I apologized and left, I didn't know what else to do."  
  
Will frowns, "We're supposed to have full run of the place," he thinks for a moment. "What did the building look like?"  
  
"I don't know. A building?" Tommend says unhelpfully. "Tall, at least three stories tall. Lots of windows, but it was pretty plain."  
  
"I'll report it to Captain Picard," Will nods. "As a piece of information alone, it might not arouse suspicions, but with the presence of a wall, it's hard to say what it could be."  
  
"To the captain?" Tommend immediately looks nervous. "Well-- what if it's just construction or something? I don't want to bother him with nothing--"  
  
"Let me decide if something is nothing, alright?" Will says, trying to sound reassuring, whilst towing the line of command. "If it's nothing, then there won't be a problem, but we should investigate anything and everything that looks suspicious. We don't know how these people have evolved."  
  
"Yes sir," Tommend says, twisting the material of her skirt. "Other than that building, I've just been spending some time around the main square. I haven't decided where I want to go yet, but I'm leaning towards the school system. I'm interested to see how they teach the children about their doctrine."  
  
"That's an excellent idea, Tommend. I'm sure Starfleet records would benefit from the perspective of someone like you on this subject." Will says encouragingly.  
  
She straightens up a little bit with pride. "Thank you, sir," she says, trying not to grin.  
  
It takes him a while to find Picard, considering the size of the place and the fact that their communicators are forced to be kept in their pockets as they don't "adhere to the aesthetic" which is so righteously important to the avrialle, where their chirping can be easily overpowered by any number of sounds, and hails forgotten or missed entirely.  
  
He finally manages to track him down in the gardens, where he seems to be taking a break under a willow tree, writing something in his own holojournal. Unsurprisingly, he's choosing to use the stylus to write on the screen, rather than type with the keyboard. There's something very romantic about seeing him sitting under a sweeping tree on a bench writing by hand.  
  
Looking up upon Will's approach, he dims the screen and clips the stylus to the side. "Something you need, Number One?"  
  
"Captain." Will greets. "I have some news for you, collected by Ensigns Crusher and Tommend." When Picard waves him over, Will comes as beckoned. "It appears the Avrialle are keeping a few secrets from us, Sir. Wesley discovered today that there is a massive, one hundred foot plus wall surrounding the city, and Ensign Tommend was forbade into entering a building, where armed guards were patrolling outside. The wall too, is heavily guarded. To be honest Sir, I don't know what it means for us, or for the Avrialle but it seems like they may be hiding something from us."  
  
"Hm," Picard's brow furrows. "That's a troubling thought. In the past few days the king hasn't mentioned one word of a wall. Perhaps you'd care to accompany me to dinner tonight, we might have a chance to ask him a few questions on the matter."  
  
Will can feel Picard looking at him when he breathes out. He swallows the lump in his throat, and wears a polite smile when he replies, "Yes sir."  
  
"And Number One," Picard calls after him as he turns to go, unable to keep just the hint of a smile out of his voice. "Do try to button your shirt, for once?"  
  
Will laughs softly, "I'll try sir, but I can't make any promises."  
  
As Picard watches him go, he sighs and rubs a hand over his face. He just can't seem to help himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Avrialle food is both very reminiscent of and very different from earth food. They have the same basic staples, a form of bread, starches, vegetables, meat and the like-- but the actual substances are unlike anything the crew of the Enterprise has had before. Their primary source of meat is from a creature called a "grabbot" which is a relatively ugly creature, low to the ground with six legs and wrinkled hides-- but remarkably sweet, tender meat. Its prevelance in avrialle cuisine is about as common as pork in human culture, but it's only one of many ingredients they use.   
  
It makes mealtimes an aventure every night, that's for sure. While the first few nights, all the ensigns reported back to the palace to have dinner with the king, as they slowly spread out and find out what they want to focue their studies on during their stay on Draconoquis, fewer and fewer of them report back for dinner, choosing to spnd their time with whoever they've been socializing with the most.   
  
Tonight, it's just four ensigns, at the other end of the table, along with just half of the officers-- Deanna, Will, Data and Picard. The king of course sits at the head of the table, with his wife at his right while Picard sits at his left side, and the other humans sit past Picard, but there is a barrier between the officers at the other ensigns, formed by the princes and princesses, arranged in age with the oldest nearest to them, and the youngest situated at the far end. There's Edgar, Anthony, and Percy, roughly 17, 14 and 8 respectively, as well as Joanna, Constance, Margery, Lucinda and Henrietta-- 18, 16, 14, 12 and 10 respectively-- every single one of them of which are taller than even Worf and Will, even the youngest.   
  
"I had a few questions, your majesty, if you don't mind," Picard says as he cuts into his steak. "I've heard a few troubling reports from my crew."  
  
"Troubling?" the king replies airily. "In what way?"  
  
"My First Officer told me that he heard about the wall from one of his ensigns," Picard says, and immediately all clinking of silverware between the avrialle stops so abruptly, that the murmured friendly conversation between the humans at the other end of the table also quiets.   
  
Will notes that it's a strange reaction. If the wall is innocuous, just a part of their life, there's no reason for all of them to have stopped as though they'd been given grim news. He decides to be swift in backing Picard's position, before the King or anyone else has a chance to fill the space of silence.   
  
"I was told it was heavily guarded by some of your men, Your Majesty." Will says, setting his fork and knife down. "Is there something beyond the wall that you're afraid of? Or something you're trying to keep out?"  
  
"Afraid of? Of course not," the king recovers from his surprise quickly. "I just didn't expect to hear that anyone went out that far! It takes at least a two hour journey from the center of London to get to the wall, it would take some commitment to wind up all the way out there. What was your ensign looking for, exactly?"  
  
Will offers a very polite smile, but anyone on his crew who knows the Commander personally, will recognize it not as a sincere expression, but one that he often wears for political matters. Fake, in short, but usually foreign parties find it charming all the same, "Our crew is very thorough, right down to the last ensign, Your Majesty. Our mission here is to explore, and study your culture and how it's evolved over the years. That might mean taking a two-hour hike to see the very edges of your fine city."  
  
"Well, if you're interested in going beyond the wall, there's nothing to stop you," the king says amiably as he takes a bite of his dinner. "You're not prisoners in my city, after all! This is hardly the only city on our planet, there are roads that could take you from place to place. The wall is simply there to keep my people safe!"  
  
"Safe from what?" Picard asks.   
  
"The wildlife, of course," Albert replies. "Not everything that lives on the surface is as friendly as you and I." Will exchanges a look with Picard-- one that indicates that he's not buying the story, but they have no way as of yet to disprove anything Albert is saying, so Will keeps those suspicions to himself.   
  
"And what about the building?" Will says, squinting. "The multi-storied building with all the lights, and the armored guards? An ensign under my command told me that they were turned away from the building by your men. What's in there?"  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about, you'll have to be more specific," Albert says casually.   
  
"Before we arrived, we were told that we were allowed to go anywhere in the city," Picard says. "Now you're maintaining that you, the man in charge, are unaware of the only building in the entire city we aren't allowed to go?"  
  
"I may be in charge but I can't be everywhere at once," Albert says, taking another bite. "Chances are it's just some construction, or the building has been condemned for repairs! We have no reason to hide anything from you. Why so suspicious? Come now! You are our guests! Have we not given you everything?"  
  
Picard shares that same look with Will in return. "You will have to forgive us our suspicions," he addresses the king flatly. "We have been tricked too many times by too many people."  
  
"We aren't trying to trick you," the king says with a curling smile. "If you want to visit the wall, then visit. If you want to enter condemned buildings then you may, pending their completed repairs. We are an open, civil people!"  
  
"Papa, may I be excused?" Joanna suddenly says abruptly, her voice clipped. She doesn't wait for a reply, she just tosses her napkin down on the table and swiftly stands, her chair scraping loudly on the floor and echoing through the hall as she turns to leave quickly.   
  
"Tail, dear!" the queen calls after her, tutting as she looks back towards the table. "Children," she clucks motherly.   
  
Will watches after their daughter as she leaves, but turns back to the King in short order to inquire, "What do you mean by "tail?"  
  
"Just making sure she remembers to keep her tail in her skirt," the queen answers for him simply before taking another bite of her dinner. "Modesty is the most becoming quality of a princess."  
  
The First Officer can't help but grin at that. "Her tail in her skirt?"  
  
"Humans might not have tails, but we do," the queen says, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. "It's unladylike for your tail to show."  
  
Deanna catches Will's eye from across the table, her brows raised up very high.  
  
Will laughs, genuinely amused by the notion, "I see." he looks up with a broad grin. "And how do the women in your species usually go about hiding their tails?"  
  
"With very big skirts," Henrietta replies from the other end of the avrialle brood.  
  
Deanna gives Will a coy smile from down the line of the table, but their little back and forth is soon interrupted by one of the Ensigns who asks, "What other kinds of people live on your planet? You said there were other cities. What about the wildlife?"  
  
"We are the only upright people on this planet," the king says, perhaps a little too quickly. "As for the wildlife--"  
  
Conversation eventually dulls, and everyone drifts away from the table one by one. Before making it very far down the hall, a hand takes Will by the arm, and he looks down to see Deanna, struggling with some of her skirts.   
  
"Will," she whispers, and indicates with her chin for him to follow her, bending down to gather up as much skirt as she can carry before heading around a corner and into a small antechamber. "These dresses are lovely but they will be the death of me," she mutters, letting the layers of petticoats drop. "I trust you to pass this to the captain when you can-- you should know that when the wall was mentioned, I sensed a spike of panic among every avrialle present at that table, even the youngest."  
  
He nods, wearing a serious expression, "Did you sense anything else? It seemed like he was being deceptive, but you'd know better than anyone." Will holds his arm out for her so she doesn't trip over her skirt. He smiles, watching her, "You look very nice in that dress, by the way."  
  
She can't help but smile. "_Don't_ flatter me. I've been sweating like an albardian slime-hog all day," she mutters, fluffing her skirts. "I sensed something off in him. I sensed he was telling the truth, everything he said was honest, but... I feel as though he was selecting his words very carefully, to frame what he said so that he could never be accused of lying. I don't think he was lying about the wall, I think it is there to keep everyone safe. But I'm not so sure if the part about wild animals being the threat is truthful."  
  
"Mm. It's hard to say, we don't have enough information to go off of." He frowns, chewing over the inner corner of his lip, before he sighs. "I'll make sure to bring it to the Captain's attention." a grin tugs at his lips. "As always, you pull through for us...Imzadi."  
  
"You may also want to have someone check on Princess Joanna," Deanna says. "She was quite upset when she ran from the table. She was gone too quickly for me to be sure of what, but it was something about what her father was saying. It... distressed her."  
  
Will seems a bit stiff that she doesn't respond back with the same affection, but he recovers quickly. "I'll walk you back to your room," he offers, lost in thought. Their playful flirtations are a constant in their relationship, either she's severely not in the mood, or she's still making good on her intentions of getting to the bottom of whatever's going on between her and Picard.  
  
He does just that, allowing Deanna to hold onto his arm so she doesn't trip on her skirts, and once she's safely back ino the quarters she's been given, he takes off to look for Princess Joanna himself. It takes some exploration of the castle before he finds her, but when he does, she's in one of the many gardens. So as not to come up on her unawares, Will clears his throat.  
  
Startled, she looks up from the edge of the fountain she'd been perched on, and all four pink eyes widen at the sight of the approaching human. Her secondary arms curl around her stomach, while her primary arms quickly fix her hair. She looks like she's been crying.  
  
"You're the... oh, red, red what did red mean," she whispers to herself, shaking her head. "You're not the captain. Red meant-- it means command, right?"  
  
"Yes," Will replies, his voice soft. "I'm Will Riker, the First Officer. And you're Joanna, right? The way you ran from the dinner table had me worried, so I came to find you. Are you alright?"  
  
"Worried? About _me?"_ she seems shocked by the notion, and quickly fixes her skirts, looking frantically for, at a guess, a trace of her tail showing. "I'm... fine. Thank you for checking on me."  
  
"Of course." Will says, looking away politely while she fixes herself, he only returns his gaze to here when the shuffling of her lace stops. "Was something wrong? You seemed upset by something your father said...about the wall?"  
  
She watches Will for a moment, searching his face. It looks like she wants to say something, but after a few moments of silence, she shakes her head. "No, nothing was wrong. I just felt ill and I wanted to loosen my corset where it wouldn't be obscene."  
  
Will hums then, "Are you sure? You know if you were upset about something, it wouldn't have to get back to your father, if you tell me."  
  
She looks frightened for a moment, but then recovers and smiles, her eyes creasing. "Yes, I'm sure. Thank you, again, you're very kind. Kinder than-- well." she gathers her skirts and stands, and towers over him nearly by double. "I should go help my sisters to bed. Thank you, milord."  
  
Giving him a little curtsy, she runs very quickly from the garden-- quick enough that Will even sees a flash of blond hair at the end of her tail. It's nothing that would scandalize _him_, but the fact that she's run away fast enough to be careless with that tail they insist is so forbidden to show tells him something.   
  
Her father is hiding something, and it's enough to scare her into silence. He has to find out what's going on with that building.  
  
Unable to sleep, Will changes into some dark clothing, and heads into town. Most of the Avrialle are asleep by the time he's creeping about, so it's not hard to find what he's looking for. It's the only building that's lit up past sundown, with a few lights in windows here and there as the exception--the building Tommend had spoken of. It sits on a fairly untrafficked road, away from the prying eyes of strangers, or even commoners, and it's packed to the teeth with armed guards.   
  
It's easy enough to slip by most of them, as at this time of night many of them are sluggish, but even so, the windows are too high for Will to see into any of them without arousing suspicion, and the doors are all locked--and trying to get in proves to be his downfall, because a few of the guards notice, and immediately shoo him off the premises. So much for that.  
  
If he wants to get into the building, he'll have to break in. They could always call for a desperate hail mary from the ship, and be beamed directly inside the building, but they have no way of knowing what's even in there. For all they know, the place is condemned just for construction, although he'd be hard pressed to believe that considering the depth into the night the building is lit up, but if it is true they could be beamed directly over a weak floor and fall through, getting injured or gored or worse.   
  
He'll need help, someone to distract the guards and help him get inside, most likely he'll recruit Worf and Data, possibly the captain himself-- it won't be a task they get to tonight.   
  
Over the next couple of days, he shares his plan with the rest of the crew, who all agree that the building and the attitude of the locals in regard to it are just too suspicious to be ignored. While waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, Will receives another check-in from Wes, who had successfully managed to convince the avrialle to station him on the wall, officially moving him from the palace into the guard barracks there instead. According to Wes, the avrialle on the wall all talk vaguely of a "threat" but won't go into detail whenever he tries to press them for exactly what they mean.   
  
Even the children around the city seem to dart away from the crew if they ever start asking too many questions. Picard is able to get no further information from the king, and even when Deanna is able to sense deception from someone, no amount of gentle interrogation seems to be getting them anywhere. The only remaining course of action is to break into that building.   
  
Armed with phasers set to stun, Will, Picard, Worf and Data sneak through town in the dead of night to make it to the building. Circling around back, the four of them stay low in the bushes as they wait for the patrol to round the corner. With a very small, concentrated blast from a phaser, Data is able to melt the padlock on a cellar door, and opens it to quickly usher the others inside and down the cramped flight of stairs into a spacious cellar with ceilings tall enough for them to stand up in, but the avrialle would have to duck to be in this room. Data closes the door behind them quietly, just in time for the next patrol to come around the corner of the building, as Picard turns the light on in his phaser.   
  
Looking around the space, it appears to be some kind of record storage. Deteriorating boxes of molding paper sits on every shelf, slumped together in piles. The dirt ceiling itself is criss-crossed with leaking pipes that drip ice-cold and foul smelling water on them. Thankfully they'd chosen to change back into their uniforms for this, both so they could move easier and so anything that happens to them wouldn't damage the clothing the avrialle had gone through so much trouble to make for them.   
  
"Over here, captain," Worf grunts softly from the other side of the basement when they fan out to search, and they follow him to an old, sagging wooden door. It once again takes Data's strength to unstick the swollen thing from its frame, and they exit the area into a slightly more finished looking basement, with concrete floors and heavy pipes on the ceiling, a boiler taking up a great deal of space churning away to one side, and a flight of stairs off to the other.   
  
"What are the chances we can just walk up those stairs and everything will be fine?" Picard mutters.   
  
"Not very likely, we need to send someone to scout ahead. They've probably got patrols on every level, as heavily guarded as the outside is," Will mutters quietly, holding his phaser near. "If we get caught in here, we have no idea what the avrialle might do to us."  
  
Picard nods. "You go first, Number One. Mr. Data, watch his back. If the worst should come to pass and you are captured, it will be easier for Lieutenant Worf and I to sneak out, and I can take your 'punishment' into my own hands for sneaking about. I'll be able to come up with something to satisfy the king that won't put either of you at risk."  
  
"Understood," Data says, already heading for the stairs, but waiting for Will to take the lead.   
  
"That being said," Picard hisses after them. "Do be safe."  
  
Will searches Picard's eyes for a moment. He looks like he desperately wants to say something, but he can't bring himself to voice it, so he just nods and turns on his heel to go up the stairs.   
  
They creak under he and Data's combined weight, but they feel solid under foot, so Will doesn't pause as he passes up the flight, followed closely behind by Lieutant Commander Data. They pause just at the top, hidden behind the wall, and listen for any signs of movement or talking, but when they hear nothing, they step out onto the landing.   
  
The sight of the first floor startles them. It certainly doesn't look like any kind of building that should be condemned, with crisp floorboards and plaster walls, an iron elevator against one wall and a shiny semi-circle mahogany desk in the center of what looks to be a lobby of some kind, complete with a crystal chandelier hanging overhead. The place is deserted of everyone, including guards, not a soul to be seen from one end of the building to the other. The carpeted hallways are lined with closed dark doors, and apart from Will's breathing, there's not a sound.   
  
"Number One!" Picard's whisper from the bottom of the stairs startles them out of their confusion. "What do you see?"  
  
"It's some kind of lobby." Will whispers down the stairs, his voice carried on the echoey reverberation of the stairwell. "It looks like a government building of some kind."  
  
"Is it safe to come up?" Worf rumbles, keeping his own voice low.  
  
"I believe so," Data answers.  
  
Picard and Worf follow them up the stairs, and they make a brief sweep of the first floor. All the doors in the hallways lead to small office spaces, some of which have daybeds and couches in them, all of which have desks and book shelves, the rooms decorated by potted plants and sculptures. None of it makes sense.   
  
Finding nothing of note on the first floor, they head for the wooden L-stairs that wrap around the iron elevator, and cautiously walk up them, holding close to the wall, where the steps creak the least. Still they move slowly, until they come up on the second floor. This one is markedly different, with white walls and tile hallways. It's still deserted by anyone in the halls, but some of the doors have lights on past them. The windows in every door are all fogged for privacy, but Will is able to very carefully open one of the doors just far enough for him to peek inside.   
  
Within the room, he sees what looks like a hospital room, with a wash basin and a mirror, and a small avrialle who must be a child considering its size, sleeping on their back with their hoof up in a sling over the bed.   
  
"Captain," Will motions him over. "You should come have a look at this, but be quiet."   
  
Picard moves over, and is soon followed by Worf and Data, and all of them peer inside.   
  
"It's a hospital." Will whispers. "Why were they hiding this?"  
  
"A hospital?" Picard's face also morphs into confusion.   
  
Data opens another door, to find a similar sight, of another avrialle in a hospital bed curled up on their side asleep. "It does appear to be a hospital," he says, modulating his volume low. "Why they would try to hide a hospital, I cannot speculate."  
  
"Thoughts?" Picard says, glancing at Will, clearly at a loss himself.  
  
"Maybe the didn't want to appear weak to an outside species. The avrialle do put a lot of emphasis on their appearances. They may have thought that the presence of a hospital would show their humanity a little too much, so to speak." He looks sidelong at Picard as he closes the door he'd opened. "Afterall, they place a lot of importance on hiding the... inappropriate. Maybe they felt the same way about this."  
  
"I suppose that could be the case," Picard murmurs.   
  
"Enough to put armed guards outside?" Worf grunts. "They'd shoot us sooner than let us see a _hospital?"_  
  
"Who's down there!" a voice suddenly comes from upstairs, muffled and stern. "If one of you is out of bed I swear--"  
  
They don't have much time to act. The stairs to go back to the first floor are farther away, while the stairs to go up are right across the hall from their position. With two flights of stairs going to the third floor, and the sound of avrialle hooves coming down the flight of stairs at the other end of the hall, they don't have the time to go down.   
  
"Up, up," Picard hisses. "We'll circle around."   
  
Darting up the stairs just in time to stay out of sight as an avrialle reaches the second floor, they spill out onto the third. It's another hospital floor, but this one is different. The landing is small, and there are only two doors on either side of it, both of which have dim lights shining through the frosted windows. The avrialle is muttering and patrolling the second floor, giving them just enough time to open one of the doors.   
  
The sight beyond the door is gruesome. A long room, filled with cots pressed in so tightly together that the avrialle that inhabit them are touching one another, in four rows of at least 20 beds from the door to the far wall. There's scarcely enough room between the rows to walk for them, much less for another 12-foot creature of their kind.   
  
In every bed lies a cripplingly wounded avrialle. Nothing like the mild sicknesses and injuries of the second floor, up here are the moaning, incapacitated patients of some kind of massacre. Missing limbs and eyes, gashed bellies and throats, broken bodies lining the room from end to end. Picard feels ill just at the sight of it.   
  
Will looks around in a panic, his heart skipping a beat, but he soon hardens his face and his demeanor, reminding himself of what they'rd in the midst of. They have no time to be emotional, so he pushes his feelings down, and turns to Picard.   
  
"This looks like they went to war with someone. A neighboring city, maybe? That would explain the wall, and the King's hesistence to answer questions about it."  
  
"We'll have all the time in the world to ask questions once we're out," Picard hisses, the sound of hooves coming back up the stairs bringing them back into focus, and they close the door and dart down the opposite staircase to the one the avrialle is coming up.   
  
But their retreat is cut short when they set foot on the second floor, to find someone stepping out of their open door, looking for a bathroom or a nurse most likely. Their eyes widen and they shout, "Nurse! Nurse!"   
  
They have to move like lightning then, darting for the second floor stairs to the first floor, trying to outrun the nurse who comes back down from the third floor in a hurry, in hot pursuit. They make a beeline for the basement, but the instant Will gets his hand on the door knob, a voice from behind shouts "FREEZE!" and all four of them turn to look into the angry faces of armed guards, bearing muskets pointing in their direction.   
  
So much for pretending Picard didn't know anything about this. 


	4. Chapter 4

The worst part about Avrialle jail is, hands down, the odor. Most of the avrialle keep very clean, but there's something very distinct about the smell of a dirty avrialle that climbs up their noses to die. It's sour and sweet and foul, choking the air out of their lungs as they wait for something to happen. Retribution, revenge or release are the only things they have to possibly look forward to.  
  
Though eventually it's the latter, it's regrettable that it takes them as many hours to march them back up to the castle as it does. Filthy, exhausted, and at this point starving, the four of them are brought to the throne room. It's still dark outside, though the sky has just started to lighten into a royal blue as the sun begins to rise. The king and queen are already there, dressed in robes to give themselves some modesty, looking a bit disgruntled at being pulled out of bed at such an hour.  
  
But while they're expecting the worst, the king brightens up at the sight of them. "Gentlemen! These humans are not criminals, release them at once!" Not that there was much to release them from. The avrialle's handcuffs are so big they would slip off their thighs, much less their wrists. Nevertheless, the jailhouse keepers step away from the four of them, leaving the king to sag in his chair with a sigh. "I've been told you discovered our shame."  
  
Will turns his head to look at Picard, the captain just nods, so his first officer asks, "Shame...sir? What do you mean, shame? It's just a hospital. Why was it under guard?"  
  
Albert sighs heavily. "Oh, it's not the people who are our shame, it's what put them in such a state," he shakes his head, and the queen reaches out to squeeze his hand. "I didn't want to tell you, it never should have come up. But I forgot how naturally curious you humans are... I thought putting guards there would deter you but it seems to have had the opposite effect."  
  
"He is talking around the point," Worf growls under his breath.  
  
"I agree," Will says, "Why did you hide them from us? What's this 'shame' you're talking about? If it's war-- we humans know quite a bit about that subject, unfortunately."  
  
"It's not an issue of _war_ as much as... pest control," Albert sighs wearily. "It's a problem we hoped we would be over with by now, before you arrived. When we first got your missives about your coming approach months ago, we doubled down on the problem and tried to have it resolved by now... to no avail."  
  
"You still have not yet said what the problem is," Picard says, raising his voice slightly.  
  
Albert and Victoria share glances, and finally the king nods and sighs. "You remember when I said the wildlife outside the wall was dangerous? I wasn't lying. Outside the wall lives a race of violent creatures known as the daerelich. They attack without discrimination, and we had to build that wall just to keep them away from the good-natured people of London."  
  
"Accessing... there is no record of anything called daerelich in the reports of Captain Webster's crew two centuries ago," Data says. "Or even the mention of particularly violent wildlife."  
  
"No, there wouldn't be," Albert sighs. "They're a relatively recent problem. We don't know why they've suddenly gone mad and started attacking wildly, but in the past twenty years or so, the casualties have skyrocketed from attacks by these mad dogs."  
  
"Are these daerelich a new species?" Will asks, he takes a step closer to Picard, maybe less than a step. He's just standing a fraction closer, but it's enough that the captain can feel how warm he is.  
  
"We don't really know. We aren't scientists... we've had everything provided for us by the doctrine, and we enjoy a simple way of life, rich with the arts, music, theatre, culture... we live in our cities in peace and harmony, and when threats come to our doorstep, there's little we can do but bar the doors and hope it goes away."  
  
"So if I am understanding this correctly," Picard says, stepping away from Will in order to approach the king more closely, raising his voice to just below a shout. "You deliberately withheld information about a threat to my crew because you wanted to save yourself the imagined indignity of telling us that you, like nearly every species in the known universe, have an enemy?"  
  
"I assure you, the indignity is not _imagined_, captain!" Albert holds a hand over his heart. "The avrialle are a proud race! To be laid so low by... by _animals_ is not something we would admit to so lightly! There was no danger to your crew in my city, if you wanted to leave at any point I would have given you fair warning as to the dangers on the road, but so long as you remain within these impenetrable walls, you and your people are perfectly safe."  
  
"These...people." Will starts tentatively. "Has any atempt been made to reconcile with them? You must have your differences, if they're willing to attack you like this--what provoked them?"  
  
"People?" Albert repeats, startled. "They are not _people_, Mr. Riker. They are animals, like your earth horse or-- or lion. They are not like you or us, do you understand?"  
  
"They are non-sapient?" Data asks.  
  
"Yes," Albert seems relieved that they have a word for it. "They are animals. You cannot reconcile with animals."  
  
"Are they sick?" Worf asks. "If they attack unprovoked, perhaps they've all gone mad with some kind of illness."  
  
"I wouldn't know," Albert says tiredly. "As I said, I'm no scientist."  
  
"What do they look like?" Will continues, pressing a bit. "If our people venture outside the walls, we'll need to know what to look for, so we don't get attacked on sight."  
  
"They're... big. They scuttle around close to the ground, and they're red. Reptilian, perhaps. Beyond that, we haven't honestly gotten a good report as to what they look like," the king says, shaking his head. "Most people don't survive an attack from them, and the ones who do are so traumatized we can't get a straight answer out of them about what happened. But they all say the same thing... they're red."  
  
"That should stand out against the green vegetation that grows naturally all over the planet, sir," Data says.  
  
"Then we'll be able to see them coming if they ever attack," Picard says flatly.  
  
"You misunderstand me, sir," Data continues. "It is not common for animals to evolve to stand out from their natural habitats. If they were naturally dwelling creatures, they would be either green or brown to blend in with their environment. Red is polar opposite to green on the color wheel, they not only do not blend in, but they could not possibly stand out more."  
  
"Your point being?" Will says, squinting as he is wont to do when he's got a sneaking suspicion about something in particular. "The avrialle are blue, that doesn't really blend in with anything here in the city, or on the planet. Are you saying you believe they're some kind of alien species?"  
  
"I am saying, I do not think they live outside the walls," Data says. "Beyond the cities, this planet is a dense, arid jungle. The natural camouflage of any creature living there would be designed by evolution to fit there. If there is something red attacking your people, your majesty... it does not live in the jungle."  
  
"Why does it matter where it lives?" Albert says, his temper starting to flare as he leans in towards their direction. "This is irrelevant to the level of danger we face from them every day!"  
  
"Albert," Victoria says soothingly, placing a hand on his chest to get him to lean back in his seat. "Forgive my husband's temper, he just wants to keep his people safe."  
  
"Why don't you teach them to fight instead of keeping them trapped inside a wall?" Worf challenges.  
  
"Lieutenant Worf," Picard says warningly. "You know what we are here to do. Giving them pointers is not part of our mission parameters."  
  
Worf has a very good point, but Will doesn't agree with him, at risk of being reprimanded by Picard, as well. The last thing he needs to do is get on the captain's bad side, as if he could anymore than he is now. He does, however, shake his head.  
  
"On one hand, you're insisting that they're not a threat unless you go outside of the wall, and on the other hand, you're talking like they're the biggest threat your people face, so which is it?" The commander sounds frankly, annoyed now. "Why are any of your people going outside of the city if you know they're out there, if you're not actively at war with these creatures?"  
  
"Because there are other cities on our world!" Albert says. "We have not yet had the advantage of discovering _transporter_ technology like some privileged species!"  
  
"No, because you're stuck in Vicorian England!" Will shouts, getting angry at last. "Maybe if you weren't so--" he bites his tongue and swallows down his anger, but utters not a word of apology for his outburst.  
  
"That is _enough_," Picard shouts over both of them. "This was a misunderstanding. We apologize deeply for the tresspass in your hospital. If at any point an attack should occur while we're stationed here, we will offer aid where we can. Unless you would like to enact some kind of punishment on us, we have not eaten or slept all night."  
  
"It isn't illegal to enter a hospital," Albert says wearily, slumping sideways in his chair. "You're free to go."  
  
"Dismissed," Picard hisses to the other three, and gives Will a disparaging look before he makes haste to leave the throneroom.  
  
"Captain--" Will follows after him. "I want to apologize for my outburst."  
  
"I don't want to hear it, Number One," Picard says, his voice tight and bitter as he continues down the hall at a breakneck pace. "Control yourself. Your apologies are wasted on me, I am not the one you injured."  
  
Will stops in his tracks, and bites back his emotions, swallowing his pride. "Yes sir."  
  
When Will stops, it gets Picard's attention and he stops too, a few feet away. Sighing, he pinches the bridge of his nose. "We just spent our night crawling around a hospital because these people are too ashamed of the fact that they have an enemy like all the rest of us. _Pointless_ doesn't come close to describing this evening. I want tea, I want a bath, and I want to sleep. I suggest you do the same."  
  
His first officer looks at him for a long time before answering, his blue eyes as tight as the line of his mouth. Then he just nods and replies again, "Yes sir."  
  
There's something there, for just a moment. An air of familiar tension between them that Picard could break with just a word... but he doesn't dare. He steps away and walks down the hall, just as Albert goes sweeping past Will, his strides long and carrying him around the corner of the hall much more quickly than Picard. But still, Will stands there to watch him go, his chest aching.  
  
A moment later he hears a soft grunting from behind him, and he turns to see Victoria come through the doorway leading to the throne room. She struggles to stand, her two left hands braced on the wall while one of her right hands grips her skirt and the other is held out for balance. She stops instantly at the sight of Will, all four eyes widening, and she nearly staggers when she tries to stand up.  
  
"Oh-- William. I thought you'd gone," she titters, brushing a stray blond curl from her face.  
  
"The Captain and I were just talking," Will admits, and he looks her over with some scrutiny, then asks, "Are you alright, Your Majesty? Should I go get someone? You look a little ill, no insult meant."  
  
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she waves a hand. "No fuss needed, but thank you. I just need to get back to my chambers."  
  
She wobbles then as she tries to take a step, her legs seeming to fail her, but she catches her hand on the wall again. She looks embarrassed, her face twisting into a mixed expression of shame and fear. Sighing, she looks back across at Will.  
  
"Perhaps I'm a little weary on my feet this morning. My husband went off in such a rush, lost in his thoughts... would you help me back to my rooms?"  
  
Honestly, if she fell, Will wouldn't come close to being strong enough to catch her. The top of his head barely comes up to her waist, and her dress alone probably weighs more than Will does, but he could never say no to a person in clear distress.  
  
"I'll do my best." Will says, and he comes to her side, and much like a support animal for someone with a mobility problem, he acts as a stable base for her to lean against. She is heavy but he makes no move to tell her as much, she seems already to be under a lot of stress, and a large part of him feels guilty for having snapped at her husband, which likely led to his absence now. It feels only right to help her back to her chambers.  
  
"I'm sorry," WIll says as they walk. "For barking at you and your husband like that. It was just a stressful night, but still I should have known better." _I'm a Starfleet officer, for crying out loud._  
  
"No damage done, darling," she says, both of her right hands braced on either of Will's shoulders as she limps along the hall, held up between him and the wall. "For what it's worth... we really are sorry we didn't tell you about the daerelich sooner. We would have told you if it became relevant. Honestly we didn't want to frighten you. My husband's never seen one up close, but... I have. It's my fault-- I pressed him to keep them a secret."  
  
"These things are always complicated--meeting a new people for the first time. Secrets are always kept, but usually it's for the greater good that people hide things. I understand why you did." He doesn't ask about her condition, or why she's limping, frankly because being a semi-disabled person himself, he doesn't even need to imagine the embarrassment that comes with being asked why you are the way you are, so he keeps it to himself. It's none of his business.  
  
"I appreciate that you were trying to keep us safe," He adds. "And I'm sure Captain Picard can appreciate that too--it's just that spending all night in a jail cell's made us all a little cranky, myself included."  
  
"Oh-- this isn't the first time Albert has met your people," Victoria says, and when Will looks up at her in surprise, her brows furrow. "He didn't tell you? He's one of the few of us who have lived long enough to remember the way things were before. You wouldn't know it by looking at him, but he's quite elderly."  
  
"I had no idea your husband was one of the first to meet with us." That's very interesting, Will notes. He tucks it away for later. "However, it's been over two hundred years since our peoples last met, so a lot has changed--in both paries."  
  
"No exaggeration," she huffs softly as they round a corner. "He was our first king and has been our only king since. Eventually the title will pass on to Edgar when Albert's time comes, and I will be queen regent until he selects a wife, at which point... I suppose I will become nothing."  
  
"You won't be nothing." Will says quietly. "You'll always be their mother, and you will always be Queen, even if you aren't sitting on the throne. People will remember you, Victoria."  
  
She looks down at him in surprise, her expression softening. Then she clears her throat, lifting her head back upright. "While I am not the first Victoria, I certainly will be the most memorable. Albert's previous two wives didn't even give him any children, and I've given him eight in the past seventeen years. Do you have any children, William?"  
  
"No, I don't have any children." Will replies, his voice softened. "But I have aspirations to someday, maybe after I have my own command."  
  
"They are both the best and worst thing that will ever happen to you," she laughs softly. "I hope you will be blessed with them one day. Ah-- these are my chambers. Thank you again for assisting me William, you are too kind."  
  
He can't very well enter her bedroom with her, so he bids her good bye at the door before retreating to his own quarters for a little self-care after such a rough night, just as the sky is turning grey with morning outside.  
  
News of the Daerelich spreads rapidly to the rest of the crew, after that morning. Whether Picard spread the word or the king himself did out of guilt for hiding it, Will doesn't know, but the rest of the crew catches on to the truth about the dangers outside the city, and the rest of the Avrialle stop trying to hide it as well.  
  
Wes learns more than anyone else, on the wall, and reports it all back to Will. He learns about the general attack patterns and strategies of the daerelich, how they prefer to tunnel up from the ground and attack passersby. Wes even sees one, at extreme distance, crawling around low to the ground-- he describes it as a red lizard, but it was too far away from the wall for him to see any more detail than that.  
  
Tommend, too, is able to finally sit in on a lesson about the daerelich once the news gets out that the avrialle don't have to hide it anymore. They don't show any pictures of them, only because their photographic technology is limited to people who can sit still for at least 20-30 seconds, but in class they're described as "red devils" and "dragons" and all manner of other frightening words, while the children are warned to always stay away from the color red and tell an adult if they ever see a glimpse of a daerelich. She expresses to Will that it sounds almost like propaganda, and Will might have believed her if he hadn't seen the devastation caused by the daerelich first hand.  
  
Beverly receives some of the worst of it, electing to station herself with the victims of the daerelich attacks to try and save as many lives as possible. She's so far not managed to rescue a single one, most of them have developed infections before she even got there, especially crammed into such tight quarters as they are, but she hears details about the attacks, about how the daerelich would spring out of the ground like weeds and slash into them like they were made of paper, only to disappear underground just as fast and leave them to crawl back to the city with their guts hanging out, leaving a trail of bodies behind when their comrades would succumb to bloodloss one by one.  
  
Picard issues a command to his entire crew to avoid the daerelich at all costs, to stay within the city and make no attempt to locate or communicate with the beasts. They've all heard enough horror stories to last them a lifetime.  
  
The ensigns are curious, but not curious enough to disobey orders. Those who manage to get stationed on the wall, report back to Captain Picard and his first officer whenever there's a sighting, but they don't get much information on the subject-- usually by the time the moment is over, the daerelich are gone, and the only look they get at them might be the fleeting glimpse of a red tail disappearing into a hole like a snake after its meal.  
  
Will does some probing of his own into the matter, but no one can really tell him much more than has already been divulged. He has enough sense not to go poking around in the hospital to ask first-hand survivors, because as helpful as it might be, he's not keen on re-traumatizing patients who may very well be dead in a week's time due to their injuries.  
  
According to Beverly, as far as the doctors are concerned, death of daerelich attack patients is a foregone conclusion. In some cases they don't even bother giving them food or water to try and accelerate the process of dying so they can free a cot to someone else being kept on the floor. The poor doctor is beside herself with grief at her inability to save any of these people, but there's just too many injured and not enough medicine or bandages to go around.  
  
It takes the combined efforts of Deanna, Will and Picard to comfort her after a particularly rough night where she had to convince a woman to release her hold on the body of her child so she could attend to the woman's injuries, who passed less than an hour later regardless of Beverly's intervention.  
  
Needless to say, nobody is in much of a "partying" mood when the king announces that to celebrate the halfway mark of the human's stay in their city, he'll be hosting a ball in their honor. It isn't necessarily mandatory attendance, but with how grim the atmosphere has been since the discovery of the daerelich threat, nobody really wants to put on a ball gown and waltz. Nevertheless, Picard encourages everyone to attend, if they can.  
  
On his way back from a rendezvous with Wes, Will's whole body prickles at the sound of shouting voices. He follows the sound and quickly realizes as he approaches an antechamber, that he's probably eavesdropping on something he's not meant to hear.  
  
"I said no!" it's Albert's voice, and he sounds both furious and exhausted. "My word is law!"  
  
"But you _promised!"_ Joanna's voice cracks. "You put on a dozen balls every year, why can't I just miss one? You _promised_ that I could meet--"  
  
"I don't want to hear another word about it! My own daughter will not miss this event! I have been too lenient with you already, put the notion out of your mind! If you say another word about it I'll--"  
  
"Fine!" Joanna cuts him off, and a moment later she rushes right past Will like she doesn't even see him, her eyes filled with tears as she clutches her skirts to keep them out of the way as she runs.  
  
"And for god's sake girl, **cover your tail**!" Albert's voice bellows after her as she runs around a corner and towards the castle gardens.  
  
Will makes sure to wait until Albert is otherwise preoccupied before he slips past the door and heads after Joanna. He follows the sound of her cries, until he comes out upon one of the many gardens, again finding her in solitude. This time she's sobbing openly, alone amidst the greenery of the castle, and looking weak and upset.  
  
The first officer takes a few steps forward, the crunching of his well-oiled boots sounding on the ground alerts Joanna to his presence, and she's quickly smoothing out her dress and making sure her tail is hidden. Will comes to her side and murmurs, "You don't have to do that, it's okay. I heard you and your father arguing...are you alright?"  
  
"I'm fine," she insists, dabbing at her eyes with a kerchief. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm--" she looks up into Will's tender blue eyes and her face crumples again. "I'm _not_ fine."  
  
"What were you two fighting about?" Will asks, his face still tender and concerned. It's not something she sees in the faces of the avrialle, especially her father. Adjusting her skirts for a moment so she's absolutely sure her hooves and tail are covered from her spot sitting in the grass beneath the largest willow tree in the garden, she takes a deep, shuddering breath.  
  
"My father promised that the next time the Dean of Whitehall University visited London, I would be able to meet with him and spend some time with him," she says, turning her kerchief over and over in her lap, fidgeting restlessly. "I was so excited when we received word he'd be coming for the ball, but father won't let me meet with him now, even though he promised. Next time, he says-- he said that last time, too. There's always an excuse with him."  
  
Will hums under his breath, and leans on the nearest available surface to relieve some of the pressure in his back, "Your people-- forgive me for saying-- aren't very forward thinking about women."  
  
"You don't know the half of it!" she exclaims, throwing her kerchief down. "All I've ever wanted is to be a member of the court, like father-- but he won't even entertain the idea! Edgar knows the law up and down like the back of his tail and father doesn't blink and eye, but me-- oh ME! I'm his _fair lamb_, his eldest daughter, I'm to marry _Armand Hoth_. **HOTH**!" she says it with such repulsion that it sounds like an insult. "Armand smells like _rotroot_ and he has the face of a piechark and I have no say in the matter! I begged, begged my father for years to let me meet the Dean of the neighboring university, just to plead my case. And he said if I could convince the Dean to accept me, he would let me go! He said it like he couldn't believe I could ever convince him... but I think I could! If I could just have him alone for a couple hours, I could show him my journals, my studies, everything I've learned just by sneaking around the library after hours. I memorized the doctrine cover to cover by the time I was 20! All four volumes!"  
  
Will listens, with his fingers pressed against this lips. He listens and waits for her to calm down, then glances sidelong and up at her, a wry, roguish smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, "So, Princess Joanna...you're a smart girl, you know what you have to do."  
  
When she looks at him with confusion, Will continues, "Defy your father." she starts to protest, but he keeps going. "You'll never do the things you want-- or be the person you know you can be by being a good, obedient daughter. You could be the next avrialle to invent a medicine that saves millions of lives-- you could be the next great explorer that charts the places of your planet where none dared to go. You can do anything if you set your mind to it, Joanna-- you just thave to be willing to take the first step, with or without him."  
  
She looks absolutely breathless as he speaks, like he's just handed her the world itself on a plate. Pink eyes wide, she just stares at him. She feels weightless, limitless-- nobody's ever said anything like that to her before, not even her own mother.  
  
"You--" she starts, unsure of what to even say. Both of her hearts are slamming in her chest, she wants to laugh and cry and scream all at once. All she can manage to say is, "Are you married?"  
  
Will laughs, his eyes twinkling, "No Joanna, I'm not married...but there is someone very dear to me on my ship who I'd like to pursue something with. Right now we're going through a rough patch, but I hope one day maybe we can make amends."  
  
Joanna huffs. "All the good ones are taken," she says mischievously, but her smile drops a moment later. "I... I'll have to think about it. I've never been anything but a good daughter. But I think you're right, I think-- I think at some point I'm going to have to choose between whether I'm going to be a good daughter or a good woman. The older I get, the less my father's approval means to me, and I obey more out of fear of his wrath than out of hope for his respect. He will never respect me."  
  
Will lifts his head to look at her, "A wicked king rules out of fear-- a just one, with love. When the time comes, you'll know what to do, Joanna. You may not be ready now, but trust me when I say, you will be. You're outgrowing this place and its ways, and anyone as smart as you, will eventually seek out what's right."  
  
She's silent for a moment, and then she reaches out to cup Will's head with her smaller pair of hands, her primary hands folded primly in her lap as she leans down and nuzzles the end of her long snout into his hair.  
  
"Thank you, William," she murmurs, releasing him, his hair now standing up on end. "You've said things to me nobody else in this crusty place would ever dream of. Between you and me, I think that stuffy old doctrine has to go, one of these days. I'd like to wear pants someday before I die."  
  
Will grins, "I hope you turn this place on its head, Joanna."  
  
She smiles broadly in return. "I think when the ball comes... I'm going to wear red."


	5. Chapter 5

The turnout for the party is actually quite impressive. People come from neighboring cities in drawn carriages on the long roads between civilizations, just to meet the Enterprise's crew for their Halfway Ball. It seems like an arbitrary thing to celebrate, but it evidently warrants quite the celebration. Special formal outfits are made for the human crew just for the event, tailored to their specifications and requests while still adhering to Picard's strict request of color-coordination.   
  
It might not be anyone's idea of a fantastic time to wear a 30-pound ballgown, but still, a party is a party. The food is plentiful and excellent, the doors are opened to the common folk who filter through in their nicest outfits to meet with the humans as well as the visiting dignitaries, scholars and artists from neighbor cities and their families.   
  
Picard seems right in his element, stuffy outfit aside, speaking easily with dignitaries and diplomats alike as he has so many times with other species, though he's never had to crane back quite as far to make eye contact before. That aside, he looks downright relaxed compared to how stressed he's been ever since the discovery of the daerelich. He even catches Will's eye from across the room at one point and his smile doesn't even drop.  
  
Will too, is comfortable here. He enjoys speaking with the various gathered people from all over the kingdom, and seems to fit in easily, despite being shorter than everyone--however, his advantage in height over the other humans gets commented on more than once by the avrialle, especilaly among the women, who seem to think his stature is rather dashing, though they don't know much else about human anatomy.   
  
Doctor Crusher attends the party, but she seems keen to keep to herself. Deanna, as her best friend, sticks close to her side, and only moves away when called by Captain Picard--Beverly's spirits still haven't recovered from witnessing all the deaths that have been occuring thanks to frequent attacks by the daerelich. She doesn't want to talk about it, even when Deanna asks.  
  
"We have to do something to cheer her up," Deanna says, standing between Will and Picard, looking across the room to where Beverly is sitting on a windowsill in an off-the-shoulder blue gown, staring out into the gardens. "She has felt so completely lost, it will take her a while to recover from this already. She needs our help."  
  
"What do you propose?" Picard asks.   
  
"We may want to try and convince her to leave the daerelich attack ward," Deanna says, looking between the two men. "But it won't be easy. That is where the people in the most need are, but it is also where she has had the least luck saving any lives. All it takes is for one person to develop an infection in that environment and it spreads like a wildfire. It's not safe for her, either. If she had so much as a hangnail, anywhere that these microbes could get past her skin..." she sighs, shaking her head.   
  
"You're her beast friend, Deanna." Will says, looking over at Beverly with haste, he returns his gaze to the Betazoid shortly thereafter. "If anyone can convince her to leave, it's you. Beyond that...the Captain could order her to go, but that sort of strong armed approach doesn't usually go over well with Beverly."  
  
"She'd be more likely to tell me where I can stick my order," Picard murmurs good-humoredly.   
  
"I don't know if I can convince her alone. She so desperately wants to help those people," Deanna sighs. "I haven't been up there myself, but just walking by the hospital to pick her up after a shift, I can feel their pain. Their fear. I can feel their lights going out as they succumb to fever, blood loss, infection and seizure... and she's put herself up there day in and day out watching it. It's bad enough just sensing it from the street. I'm worried about her."  
  
"If we could find another place for her to focus her concerns, we may be able to avert her attention," Picard suggests. "If only this species were even remotely interested in the field of medical research. They seem to swear by this doctrine that people die under every day. The Victorian era was not precisely the peak of our medical capabilities."  
  
"I don't know if I should say anything, because it was said in confidence to me." Will says, he seems to have something on his mind.  
  
"Say anything about what?" Picard looks across Deanna at him. "Did Beverly say something to you?"  
  
"No, she didn't," Will says, and he carefully chooses his next words. "But there's some kind of shift happening in their society--I think that in the next few years, there may be a surgence of...scientific thought. It's just a hunch but--maybe letting Beverly know there are people moving in that direction will give her some comfort."  
  
"I think that's a wonderful idea," Deanna says, scooping up some of the material of her skirt. "Excuse me."  
  
She steps away from the two men to go to her friend's side, leaving Will and Picard standing side by side. The captain eyes Will with an expression of slight amusement. "And where did you hear such a thing, Number One? You haven't been meddling in affairs, have you?"  
  
Will grins, licking the inner corner of his mouth, "Well... sometimes I can't help but get involved in things. You know how I am."  
  
"I know exactly how you are," Picard says, trying and failing not to smile. "I trust you have been strictly toeing the very edge of the prime directive, as usual?"  
  
"Don't worry sir--I've only encouraged growth in seeds that were already there." His grin drops to a smirk, and he glances down at his feet.  
  
"Well. Far be it from me to discourage the growth of seeds of any kind, least of all knowledge and change," Picard says, clasping his hands behind his back. "So long as we aren't violating the terms of our stay on this planet. Which I trust we aren't," he says it harshly, but there's a familiar old gleam of humor in his eye as he looks at Will. "Knowing you, quite a garden will be cultivated by the time we leave."  
  
"You truly do know me better than anyone, Jean Luc," he pats Picard on the shoulder and laughs, "with the exception of Deanna of course, but that's her job."  
  
A pulse of _something_ shoots through Picard's body the moment Will's hand touches his shoulder. For a moment it feels good, to have that familiar old camaraderie restored with his first officer, mending the rift that has formed between them since their disastrous encounter with Marduk more than three weeks ago. Some part of him has craved the return of this closeness, a part of him he refused to acknowledge.   
  
But just as quickly as the good feeling swells, it fades, replaced by dread. This is how it starts-- this is how it started last time. With a pleasant joke and a slap on the shoulder. Over time Picard let it grow, allowed it, even _nurtured_ it when he sought comfort at times. He's never wanted to be the sort of man to take advantage of anyone, but with Will's hand coerced back onto his shoulder, that's exactly the sort of man he feels like.   
  
Clearing his throat, he steps out of range of Will's touch. "Enjoy the party, Number One," he says stiffly, and turns to walk away.  
  
To anyone else, it might have looked like a perfectly polite exchange, but to Will Riker, the way his Captain so coldly brushes him off leaves him with an icy feeling in his chest that he can't quite shake, so to get his head on straight, he leaves the party-- or rather, leaves the parlor. Choosing now to distance himself from members of the crew, including Captain Picard, Will takes a stroll around the grounds to clear his head and try to figure out just how he's meant to approach Picard in a way that will meet the requires of his terms.   
  
It seems that any time they get too friendly, no matter how platonic or polite Will is being, Picard shuts him down on principle, like he's afraid that sparks will fly if he's in the presence of his first officer for too long. But Will knows if they could just return to their former feelings, let things level out into something approaching normal, they'd both feel a lot better. There's no way that Picard can be enjoying himself.   
  
Then again, Will thinks, if things won't go back to normal, he could tranfer. Starfleet's been trying to get him to take his own command for years, he's sure if he expressed interest, he could be on the first ship heading away from the Enterprise in no time flat, and he could put all this behind him. But all of his friends are aboard the Enterprise, and Will Riker's never been a man to give up on relationships.  
  
Lost in his thoughts, he wanders the hallways of the castle, until a flash of red catches his eye. He turns his head just in time to see bright red fabric disappear into a tiny alcove, the curtain fluttering into place behind the retreating figure. Considering the city's general feelings towards bright shades of red, and Joanna's earlier comment, he can guess who it is.   
  
Pushing aside the curtain, sure enough he finds the young avrialle balled up on a daybed by a vast window, dressed in red silk and ruffles. She looks startled when the curtain moves, but relaxes when she sees Will.   
  
"Hello, William," she says softly, folding her hands in her lap. Her iridescent skin picks up the moonlight through the window beautifully, glittering blue, lavender and gold as she shifts in place. "Why aren't you at the ball?"  
  
Will leans against the alcove wall with the drink he's been nursing and sighs, running his fingers through black hair, "Seems like everyone's having a rough night, myself included." his voice is gruffer than usual. "I'm just taking a walk to clear my head--what are you doing out here? In a dress that pretty, you should be the belle of the ball."  
  
"I... lost my nerve," she admits, adjusting the neckline of her gown so it sits properly on her shoulders. "I had the gown made, all in a frenzy over your words, but actually showing up in it..." she sighs, her shoulders sagging. "It'd be scandalous. I'm still afraid to upset my father, I suppose. I thought I was over it, for a moment I was, but then... old habits, I suppose?"  
  
"You're just scared, but fear is a temporary state of mind--like stepping up to the water's edge before you dive in. Everyone gets scared before doing something Joanna it's only..." Will ducks his head and chuckles. "Well, I was going to say human, but it would seem that humans and avrialle are more alike than we realize."   
  
He sits down beside her in the alcove, and politely tucks his hand against his side, so that he doesn't touch her without her permission, but this is the closest she's ever been to a man that wasn't one of her suitors, and Will Riker makes her hearts flutter intensely each time he looks at her with his bright eyes.   
  
Will smiles, "You are a remarkable woman, Joanna. Never doubt that. You know what your worth is, don't sell yourself short to please the people in your lives who'd have you...shine less brightly just so they don't feel threatened. There's an old addage in my culture." Will lifts his head to look at her head on. "Well-behaved women seldom make history."  
  
"I like that," she smiles, nervously running a hand over her hair. "My father's going to be furious when he sees me in this dress. But he'll be too polite to do anything in front of so many people. He'll yell at me later... insist I'll never get to meet with the Dean. But I suppose until he resorts to locking me in my room, there's little he can do to stop me."  
  
The commander nods, and grins, then he slugs back the rest of his drink. "That's what I like to hear."  
  
"Would you... come with me?" she asks, "Maybe it's silly, but I feel braver when you're around. You're nicer to me than any man I've ever known. Not just nice, but you make me feel things about myself that I've never felt before."  
  
Now it's Will's turn to feel a little hum in his heart. He looks up at her with soft eyes and nods, "Yes. I'll go with you, Joanna."  
  
She stands up, straightening her skirt, and even though the top of Will's head barely reaches her hips, he makes her feel safe as they walk back to the ballroom together-- even untouchable.   
  
The response they recieve when they enter the room is immediate. The sight of any avrialle in red, let alone the princess, stops every man and woman in their tracks, all eyes on the doorway. All conversation halts, all noise in fact, including the band. Even the starfleet officers, who had been allowed a muted shade of burgundy to comply with Picard's requests for color-coordination with each crewmember's starfleet station, didn't compare to the brilliant shade of crimson velvet and silk that Joanna's dress is made out of.   
  
Albert's face turns bright magenta from across the ballroom as he takes in the sight of his daughter dressed like a scandal, but Will notes a hint of pride on Victoria's face as the other avrialle all start to murmur to one another.   
  
Joanna appears to be rooted to the spot, afraid to move forward, already flagging under the combined stare of everyone in the room, humans and avrialle alike. It's Will who takes the first step. He sweeps out onto the floor in front of her, dramatically flaring out his coat tails when he comes to stand in front of her, and he offers his hand out to her with a gentlemanly bow of the head.  
  
She has to stoop a little bit to take his hand, but she does take it. The band seems to recover from its lapse and starts to fill the ballroom with music again, as Will leads Joanna onto the dance floor. She knows how to waltz of course, but she's never danced with someone half her height before. Nevertheless, with her back angled down slightly so she can rest a hand on his shoulder, two hands holding her skirt and her fourth holding his other hand, she dances with him.   
  
"Be careful, if I step on your foot I'll break it," she whispers to him with a twinkle in her eye.  
  
"If the price of your self confidence is a broken foot, I'll gladly take it. In a heartbeat." He murmurs, leading the dance. The avrialle all around the room are muttering and staring with expressions of awe, shock and horror. Albert looks absolutely livid-- and Will looks across the room and makes dead eye contact with Picard, a huge, smug grin tugging at his lips.  
  
Picard's brow furrows as he watches the pair, his expression neutral save for the little wrinkle between his eyebrows. He stands near Beverly and Deanna, the latter of whom are both watching Will dance with the princess with expressions of delight.   
  
"Where did you learn to waltz?" she asks, carefully maneuvering her hooves to avoid his feet, despite his claim that he would bear the injury with pride.  
  
"In Starfleet Academy, all officers are required to take an etiquette course." He chuckles, speaking softly to only her, trying to distract her from the eyes on her. "They teach us how to set a table, the proper way to eat, how to speak, and of course...how to dance."  
  
"Sounds exactly like my classes," she says, rolling her eyes, stepping in time with the music. "My people try so hard to be exactly like yours... I don't think there's anything we have anymore that's unique to ourselves."   
  
"You're unique," Will says lowly. "Look at you, in red. What avrialle would ever dare?"  
  
"Certainly not my father," she smiles. "I haven't dared to look at him yet, how bad is it?"  
  
"He looks pretty mad," Will laughs.  
  
She grimaces a smile between the two of them. "Oh, dear. I don't want to think about that yet. Let's just dance."  
  
By the time the song has finished and poor Joanna can't bear to stoop down any longer, the pair of them separate, and many of the avrialle who have had time to recover from and adjust to the shock of Joanna's red dress now approach her, tittering about their approval and excitement about her bold choice of gown.   
  
Will catches Picard's eye again from across the room, his face neutral-- to anyone who doesn't have experience reading the captain's expressions like Will does. He knows the look on Picard's face, it's the face he wears when something is troubling him, but he's forcing his expression to stay careful, even and unreadable. Maybe he'd affected some part of the captain's sensibilities with the display after all.  
  
He looks at Picard for awhile then, standing on the sidelines of the ballroom floor, but it's Picard who breaks the gaze first, and Will can't tell if he's injured him or not. Really, his intentions weren't to injure, but it had felt good to grind it in like that, and that gives Will a sinking pit of guilt.   
  
He's brought out of his thoughts by the sight of the queen, standing off alone. He isn't a master at reading avrialle expressions quite yet, but he'd be able to recognize the expression of pain if she didn't have a face at all. He remembers how she'd struggled to walk a couple of weeks ago, and while her huge layered gold and white skirts hide any possible problem she could have in her legs, he knows there must be something. If there's one thing Commander Riker can recognize at the drop of a hat, it's the particular angled lean a person holds themselves in when their back is in agony.   
  
Her eyes connect with his for just a moment and he sees the depth of pain in all four of them before she glances politely away. He watches her walk with as much dignity as she can carry with a limp in order to come to her husband's side. Whether he's still in a foul mood because of his daughter's bold performance, or he just wasn't paying attention, when she tries to reach out for his arm to support her weight on him, he flaps an arm at her dismissively without looking away from the men he's chatting with, none of whom seem to acknowledge Victoria either.   
  
With a sour expression, she looks around to make sure nobody is watching her-- nobody except Will-- and then makes a line for the archway that leads to the antehall that opens into the gardens, blackened at this time of night, and limping all the way.  
  
He's happy for a distraction, though as he's going after the Queen, he thinks to himself that maybe he's meddling a little too much in the affairs of the avrialle, but he can't just stand by when the woman looks so upset, so he follows her through the archway, through the hall and into the gardens.   
  
"Your Majesty, are you alright?" Will calls out. "You look like you're in pain--maybe I could fetch Doctor Crusher for you?"  
  
Victoria looks back at Will, her face flushed both from the chill of the night outside the warm ballroom, and the effort it took to walk this far. She forces a smile though, always polite.   
  
"I'm alright," she says, her voice strained. "I just need to catch my breath and... find something to lean on for a couple minutes. My husband was busy and distracted."  
  
He comes to her side, "You can lean on me if you need to...do you have a bad back?"  
  
"Oh, you're very charming, my dear boy," she says with a flutter in her voice. "But you don't have the strength to support me like I need..." shaking her head, she approaches a statue in the garden and leans heavily on the base of it with two hands. Immediately she seems to breathe easier, and he can recognize the kind of breathlessness that comes with back pain, eased instantly by lifting the strain off of the spine. She gives him a nod, looking frail for a creature who's almost 15 feet tall. "In a manner of speaking, yes, I have a bad back."  
  
"I do too." Will says, coming up to stand beside the statue with her. He isn't used to being dwarfed by things, but next to the sculpture, and the Queen herself, he feels absolutely tiny by comparison. "What do you mean, in a manner of speaking?"  
  
"It's this blasted weighted gown," she grunts softly, rubbing at her lower back, and Will cranes his neck enough to see a bustle situated right at the small of her back, above where her tail would sit. It bulges out from the waistline of her dress with significant volume-- if there's a weight under there, it's a big one.  
  
"Uh--forgive my ignorance, Your Majesty, but why is your gown weighted?" Will asks, the whole thing seems bizarre to him. Their gowns already weigh almost as much as he does, why would the bustle need to be weighted as well? He's no expert in Victorian clothing, so he's not sure if it's just a hallmark of those times, or if this is something significant to the avrialle.  
  
"Because, I--" just then, the queen's hand slips from the edge of the statue's base as her arm gives out. She yelps softly and hits the ground rather-- hard. Very hard, from the looks of things. She gasps as the weight of her gown bears down on her, and Will can hear the telltale sounds of gasping for air come from her, but when he drops to try and turn her over, the weight on her back is too great for him to move. She'd probably be too heavy for him to move even without it, but if the weight alone is so heavy that it resting on her back makes her short of breath enough to gasp, he knows there's no hope of moving her.   
  
She wedges an elbow under her and pushes her chest up enough to breath, coughing into the grass, and yelps as the angle forces her back into an uncomfortable position. "Sorry-- I'm sorry--" she apologizes, her cheeks a brilliant magenta with shame.   
  
"Here, let me look at you." Will does some cursory first aid, trying to ascertain whether or not she's hurt herself seriously. "Tell me about these gowns. Why are they weighted?"  
  
"To balance," she coughs again, and with his help, finally manages to roll onto her side so at least she isn't crushed under the weight. The sound of the weight hitting the ground behind her is such a deep, dull thud that it makes Will cringe. "I can't balance without my tail."  
  
"Oh I see, you were injured." Will says. "That explains a lot..."  
  
"Injured?" she looks up at him, out of breath and surprised. "You... really don't know. Nobody told you?" she scoffs, shaking her head. "Married women are to have their tails surgically removed, William. It's part of the marriage process."  
  
"Wh-what? Why?" Will stammers, he's so taken aback. "Why on earth would you do that?"  
  
"It's a sign of our commitment to our husbands," Victoria says, trying and failing again to get her feet under her. From this angle, the weight is simply holding her down with too much force, and she's too weak with pain to overpower it. "We're expected to use our husband's arms for balance after marriage. Only widows and high society women who have to entertain guests apart from her husband wear weighted gowns, so we can stand on our own again."  
  
Will licks his teeth, and mutters something that sounds an awful lot like a string of curses under his breath. "Alright. Don't panic, I'll go find your husband..."   
  
Against his beter judgement, WIll leaves her in the garden on her side, and hurries out to get Albert, worried that some other gender-based horror will befall her before he gets back. When he finds the King, Will doesn't approach him politely as he probably should have, but instead is forward and direct, with a bit of fire behind his words.   
  
"Your wife's in the garden--she fell over, because she was in so much pain she couldn't walk. You might want to go collect her."  
  
Albert immediately straightens up, while the men around him he'd been chatting with all murmur to one another. He doesn't react right away except to offer Will a curt, wordless nod, and walks swiftly away from the group, with Will at his side. As they head back through the ballroom, Will looks around to see all the many women hanging off their husbands arms, and realizes he's staring out at a sea of crippledi disfigured women-- the kind that Joanna will be someday if she doesn't manage to break out of the cycle.   
  
Returning to the garden, Will can't tell if Albert doesn't know he followed him, or if he simply doesn't care, because he grabs Victoria roughly by the arms and hauls her to her feet with enough strength that it's intimidating, as if the weight in the gown means nothing to him.   
  
"On you _hooves_, girl," he hisses. "Why must you insist on embarrassing me tonight, of all nights?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Albert," Victoria grimaces as the weight is once again settled over her lower back. "I won't fall again."  
  
Every cell in Will's body screams out for him to say something, do something, intervene. But Picard's chastising comes back to him in perfect clarity, reminding him of the fact that it isn't his business, any of their business to get involved in matters like these. Still, he can't do absolutely nothing, so mustering every ounce of his tact and poise, Will asks, "Is everything alright?" Though from the look on Albert's face, he could swear the King hasn't even heard him.   
  
"You'd think it was your first time in a weighted gown," Albert hisses.   
  
"I'm sorry, love. I was just in pain--" Victoria starts, but he cuts her off.   
  
"Oh, you were in _pain?_ Your injury is nothing compared to the injury I just suffered in there when that human announced your fall in front of five _very_ distinguished men. How am I supposed to live that down?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Albert," Victoria says, shrinking down in the grip he has on her arms. "I'm sorry."  
  
Something breaks in Will, then. Something surges in his chest that makes his whole body thrum, and he moves as if remote controlled, barely operating his own body as he shouts "Hey!" Stepping out of the shadows, he glares up at Albert. "What makes you think you can talk to her like that?"   
  
He feels something rising in his blood, his heart pumping faster, like he'd just run a mile in a minute. Will's palms are going sweaty, and his vision shrinks down to just the two of them, Victoria and Albert, as if nothing else in the world existed, his attention laser-focused on the two of them.  
  
"I _beg_ your pardon?" Albert recoils, evidently startled by the human's presence at all. "She is my WIFE. I have every right to discipline her."  
  
"William, please go," Victoria pleads. "I'm alright. Everything is fine. We're just having a disagreement."  
  
"She is a _person!"_ Will shouts, the moment is starting to get muddled, he isn't even aware of his own voice saying the words he is, right now. It all feels floaty and distant, like a nightmare taking place in a bubble filled with hot, volcanic air that burns as he breathes.   
  
He remembers something, vaguely in the back of his mind-- a shouted word, a hand grabbing her arm--their faces come into view in that vague, floaty place in the back of his mind. His mother and father, arguing, because she'd embarrassed him. Vile words hurled, and Will, just as he is now, feeling helpless to stop any of it. He's only one Starfleet officer, he can't hope to change an entire species.   
  
"How can you talk to her like that? You _cut off her tail_ so that she has to rely on you just to _walk!_ What kind of example is that to lead by? You were there when this all began, you could have stopped it!"  
  
Albert looks absolutely furious that he's being challenged like this, but Victoria steps in before he can get past the flustered confusion over having his authority questioned and move into fury.   
  
"Albert, my love," she croons, placing a hand on his cheek to try and get him to turn to look at her. "Why don't we go back to those distinguished men you were talking to together, and I can explain to them it was a misunderstanding?"  
  
"Get off me," Albert slaps her hand away from his face, but at the very least it seems to have diffused his rage towards Will. He steps away from Victoria, leaving her to once again stagger alone in that torturous gown. She offers Will an apologetic look before limping back to the stairs, holding her skirts up so she can climb them back in the direction of the ballroom.  
  
What Will is feeling is layered.   
  
He registers the present only vaguely, and now can't even remember everything he'd said to Albert. Right now, what's taking the foreground is the feeling of being so small and helpless, unable to stop his father from saying and doing things to his mother, that particular incident that he has no prior recollection of, playing on a loop like a broken record.   
  
Albert's face in his memory is overlaid with the visage of Kyle Riker, tall and imposing, holding his mother so hard by the arm she's twisting in agony-- he recalls the bruises that hand left, his mother crying alone and by herself in the parlor until Will had curled up in her lap and comforted her.   
  
And all the while he just stands there in the garden, sobbing like he isn't a full grown man with an esteemed position in Starfleet. As if he weren't responsible for the lives of thousands of people daily--he just cries, like the little boy he used to be, and tucks himself away in the garden.  
  
It's Deanna's voice that pulls him out of it, a soft cry of, "There he is, Captain! He's over here."  
  
He looks up to see Deanna rushing up to him, her skirts gathered up so she doesn't trip, with Picard on her heels, his brow set into a deep furrow. Will doesn't remember sitting down in the grass beside this fountain, but that's where reality comes seeping back into the edges for him. She sits down in the grass with him and takes him by the arms just as Picard catches up with the two of them.   
  
"Counselor Troi said she sensed you were in distress," Picard says, lowering himself down to sit in the grass as well, rather than loom over the both of them. "On our way here we saw the king and queen, and he looked like he was on a tear. What happened?"  
  
"I don't know... I hardly remember." Will says, appearing dazed and confused. "I don't even remember sitting here."  
  
"I felt you were angry," Deanna says, rubbing feeling back into Will's numb arms. "Angry and scared and sad. You don't remember what happened at all?"  
  
"The king's wife, Victoria was in pain. I followed her out here and then... went and got her husband. He came out to get her and--" Will looks up at Picard, then Deanna. "They cut the tails off of married avrialle women. That made me mad, finding that out but then the way he talked to her..."   
  
Will frowns, "That's when things got muddled. I felt like evertyhing was closing in on me. I got so mad I couldn't even see. I yelled at him for how he was treating her but there was more. In my--in my head. Memories I forgot about.. I can't describe it, Deanna. It was like I was there, again."  
  
Deanna gives Picard a harrowed look before she sits more comfortably beside Will, pulling him into her side. "You had a flashback, Will. To your childhood. Did seeing them remind you of your parents?"  
  
"I don't want to talk about it." Will says quickly, curtly. He sounds annoyed, mostly with himself.  
  
Deanna looks across at Picard, who wears an equally grim expression as he looks back down at Will, and he relaxes from a squat into a proper sit beside his first officer with a sigh.   
  
"So you yelled at the king," he says. At the very least he doesn't sound angry about it. "Did he have it coming?"  
  
Will bites the inner corner of his cheek, "I want to say yes--he was treating her like filth, but my feelings...have conflicted with my duties."  
  
"You had an emotional response," Picard says, and he earns a Look from Deanna. He sighs softly. "We have all... been under a significant amount of stress, since found out about the threat beyond the city walls. I believe one emotional response can be forgiven in times like these. Provided the kind is willing to forgive, of course."  
  
"He was pretty mad." Will says, he takes Deanna by the hand.   
  
_Can't you do something to make these thoughts go away?_ He implores her with his mind. _Please_.  
  
_You and I can **talk** about it later, but I'm not going to put a bandaid on your mind, Will,_ she replies, squeezing his hand in return.   
  
"I'm sure I could smooth things over," Picard says, leaning back on his hands in the grass. "He seems to like me. I know you have been feeling a certain way about this world, Number One, but--" he pauses when Deanna gives him another warning look, and he chooses his words as carefully and gently as he can. "But you cannot save everyone, Will. We cannot alter this world any more than it has already been altered. Everything that happens from this point on must be the decision of the people who live here, not ours."  
  
"They _mutilate_ their women." Will says, a dangerous edge to his voice. "We _made_ them this way. It's a violation of the Prime Directive to correct our mistake?"  
  
Picard sighs. "Unfortunately, yes. _We_ did not make them this way, Webster's crew did. If they were still around to correct their error, they could intervene, but there are explicit designs in place that prevent us from doing anything to alter the course of these people's society. They have had more than two hundred years to cultivate everything that have accomplished, all on their own. Doctrine aside, it is they who discovered how to build towers and guns and make paper and textiles-- I doubt the books went into as much detail that it told them the finer details of how to make _bricks_, for instance. The books that were left behind were indeed a mistake, but everything that has come as a result of it... it's this species' way of growing. Mutilation, unfortunately included. It will be up to them to decide to cease that practice one day."  
  
Will, being in the emotionally vulnerable state he's in right now, swallows down the weight in his throat, and it lands heavy in his gut. When he looks up at Picard, his blue eyes are glistening with unshed tears, and he takes in a shaking breath, "Yes sir."  
  
"I think we've had enough partying for one night, don't you Counselor Troi?" Picard says. "Let's get Will back to his room."  
  
"I agree," Deanna says, the two of them standing up, both offering him one hand each. "I'm sure he'll feel better once he gets the tights off."  
  
"I'm okay," Will says, perhaps a bit too quickly. He smooths his waistcoat down with shaky hands and follows them back to their quarters, but he seems to be haunted the entire way back.  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Will doesn't know if it's possible to be hungover from emotions, but as he rouses the next morning, that's what it feels like. He'd spent hours with Deanna after she and Picard had escorted him back to his room, just talking with her about everything he could remember from the memory that surfaced while he was facing the king and queen. She sat on the bed in a cloud of her skirts with his head in her lap, massaging his aching scalp while he recalled every last little detail he could, until he eventually fell asleep on top of his covers.   
  
Coffee isn't anything in high supply on this planet, and neither are headache remedies, leaving him to suffer with dignity as he leaves his room for the morning, preparing to go find the king and eat crow. However, as soon as he closes his door behind him, he runs almost immediately into Picard-- which is somehow worse.   
  
Anticipating another cold blow from the man, he's pleasantly surprised when Picard approaches him without any chill in his eyes. "Number one," he greets with a nod. "You look like hell."  
  
Will chuckles under his breath, "I _feel_ like hell. What I wouldn't give for a nice, hot shower right about now," he scrubs the back of his neck, and flexes it from side to side before he sighs and offers Picard a quick, polite nod in return. "Can I help you with something, Captain?"  
  
"Oh, no," Picard says, seeming a little awkward himself. After how tender they'd gotten with one another the night before, he's feeling a bit strained in Will's presence, but he can hardly bear to walk away from him now. "I was just going to go visit the wall today. I haven't had a chance to see it myself, yet, and after last night I'm eager to put some distance between myself and this castle."  
  
He looks Will up and down, curiously. "Perhaps you would like to join me? We will have to face the King eventually, but I see no reason why it must be _immediately_."  
  
Yet again, Will's smile doesn't last long again, yet despite that he does feel a certain warmth in his chest, that much is evident in the way his blue eyes soften, as does his voice. "I'd like that, sir."  
  
Exiting the castle together, dressed down in their most basic period garb, forgoing tights and heels in favor of slacks and oxfords, they catch the electric tram that will take them on a long, slow ride to the edge of the city. The seats, built for avrialle, are so tall that their feet dangle, but they've long since gotten over the indignity.   
  
"You know what I find remarkable about this place," Picard says as they watch the city streets trundle by. "Is that those books they follow to the letter-- well, I read them. _Skimmed_ them, shortly after we got here. Those four books cover the entire victorian era from end to end, from the 1840's to 1901. That's more than sity years of history, and they've managed to cram it all into one world simultaneously. For instance, the gown that Deanna was wearing last night, that was 1860's inspired-- and the architecture is largely influenced by Georgian architecture, which was at its peak in the late 1830's-- whereas at this moment we are sitting in an electric trolley, which ran in the early 1880's. And--"  
  
He pauses as he looks back from the city streets to Will, who's grinning at him. "Am I _entertaining_ you?" he asks, a bit of humor in his own voice. "Not interested in a history lesson, are we? In a way, this place's history is our own history."  
  
"Careful, thinking like that might lead you to violate the Prime Directive." Will teases gently, looking out of the window of the tram then. "We learned about the Victorian period in our ancient history studies in Starfleet, but I certainly never thought I'd see it in three dimensions outside of the holodeck."  
  
"_Me_ violate the Prime Directive? I should have you court martialed for even suggesting it," Picard chuckles. "Or perhaps lock you in the stocks in the square. Throw a few tomatoes at you? That would show you."  
  
Will ducks his head with a smirk and chews the inner corner of his lip, "Well, if it'd make you feel better," his voice is soft, and warm, and when he lifts his head his eyes twinkle mischeivously, "You can throw a few tomatoes at me."  
  
"Waste of a perfectly good tomato, if you ask me," Picard says, his own eyes twinkling right back.  
  
It's the first time in a long time that things have felt so... normal, between them. Ever since Marduk's special little torture some weeks ago, things have been so strained and painful between them. There's the barest sense of bitterness over the fact that it took a full blown sitting-on-the-ground-crying panic attack for Picard to deign to treat him like a person again... but honestly, if he'd known that's what it would take, Will would have sat on the floor to cry weeks ago.   
  
As the wall comes into focus, the two of them are joking again like old times-- or at least, Will is joking at Picard, who's trying and failing not to smile. But the captain falls silent at the sight of wall, stretching at least nine stories high, towering massive and unconquerable up into the sky. The trolley doesn't stop, but its gait is slow enough that the pair of them are able to just hop off and onto the street, standing in the shadow of that wall.   
  
There isn't much, this far away from the heart of the city. A few slums, a few shady looking individuals, and massive, towering iron gates that appear to be operated by colossal turn-cranks, able to lift it up into the air far enough for carriages to pass by underneath. The shadow at this time of morning from the wall itself stretches nearly a mile, plunged into near-darkness especially this close to it.   
  
"How did they ever manage to build something so monstrous?" Picard murmurs under his breath as he looks up at it.  
  
"Well, the ancient Egyptians of earth managed to build the pyramids with a system of levers and pulley's, and they're about the same size-- maybe bigger." He looks up at the massive stone structure and shakes his head. "The better question is where did they get the resources to mine this much stone. The labor in that feat alone must have taken... a long time. I'm surprised it's even finished."  
  
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the king say the threat of the darelich has only been prevelant in the last 20 years?" Picard says, looking warily at the wall, and then back at Will. "This is an awfully large construct to have been mined, designed, and built in 20 years. And that's assuming they had the technology already to build it, and didn't need to take any extra time just to figure out how to build it. And accounting for however long it must have taken them to come to the conclusion that a wall was their only way to keep the daerelich out...? Something isn't adding up in the timeline, Number One."  
  
"You're right about that, Sir." Will nods. "A structure like this would have taken...well, not to harp on it, but in our ancient history classes we learned that megstructures like this, even with technology could take upwards of twenty years to build, and this thing surrounds the city. There's no way it could have happened in twenty years. It's bigger than any structure that our ancestors built on earth in the same time period, it would have taken...well, more than what they say it took which means they're hiding something."  
  
"But... if the threat has been here for longer than twenty years, why lie? Why hide it? What could their motivation be in changing up the time frame? What difference would it make if the threat has been present for thirty, fifty or a hundred years?" Picard shakes his head, glowering up at the wall.   
  
"They've hidden a lot from us so far," Will says, glancing around at the few people milling about outside their homes in the slums, hanging laundry and watching their children run about. "It's hard to say what else they might hide, if they felt they had good reason. Albert has no qualms about it."  
  
"But what would the reason be?" Picard shakes his head. "_Why_ hide it? It just doesn't make sense. More of that avrialle pride? He didn't want to admit that he's been unable to eliminate the threat faster?"  
  
"Well, I found out a piece of information a few days ago that might be prudent to this topic." Will says, standing at parade rest, a habit he'd never been able to shake from his boot camp days, it gives him somethig to do with his hands anyways. "Victoria told me that her husband, the King himself, was among the first avrialle to have met with Captain Webster and his crew-- which means, he's been king for a long time. A long time. There's no telling what secrets might be tucked away in his brain."  
  
Picard immediately stops, frowning up at Will. "He's over two hundred years old? You didn't think to tell me this earlier?"  
  
"I was distracted." Will drops all warmth from his voice, and looks up at the wall. "It won't happen again, Sir."  
  
"If he's been alive long enough that he knew Webster personally..." Picard frowns, looking up at the wall again, and then at the city behind them. "That means that these people live a very long time. Which means that in the last two hundred years, it's essentially been only one generation or less-- and yet the population has exploded. Enough to fill this city, and others if the king is to be believed. According to Webster's records, they lived in small clans on the surface the last time they visited, in groups no greater than twenty or thirty. And now they're in a city with a population in the thousands... facing a threat they claim has only existed in the last 20 years, living inside a wall that would take at least that long just to build. It seems like there's just one missing piece of information that would make all of this make sense, but we just don't have it."  
  
He scowls at the wall, and then back to Will. "I think it's high time we go back to see the king. See if he can't answer some of these questions for us."  
  
Turning back towards the way they came, the first thing they hear is the screaming from on top of the wall. Shouts of alarm, followed by the firing of guns that make the humans' blood run cold. For a moment they fear that _they're_ being shot at, before they hear screaming from beyond the wall.   
  
Picard's entire body tenses. His eyes lock onto a smaller iron door in the side of the wall by the gates, access to the stairs that lead to the top. "We have to get out there," he says, rushing for the wall with his first officer on his heels. Throwing the heavy door open, there's no access to the outside from here, but he looks up the spiral staircase and spies a slit window about 20 feet off the ground that they could slip through and jump down to the ground on the other side, too narrow for an avrialle to follow.   
  
"Up there!" he shouts to Will, already tearing up the stairs, to the sound of something being torn apart and destroyed outside. They can hear screaming, animal roaring and gunfire, but by the time they make it to the window and drop down to the ground on the other side of the wall, all they see are the remnants of a carriage about a half mile away from the wall, torn to pieces. Avrialle bodies are scattered across the ground, ripped to shreds, their blood dying the ground dark magenta, with holes dug into tunnels through the ground from every angle.   
  
Whatever did this-- though they have a pretty clear idea it was the daerelich --didn't leave any survivors. The bodies are shredded, splayed out and gutted, all four eyes wide open and staring up into nothing. They weren't fast enough to stop it, or even see it, the attack must have lasted less than five minutes altogether, and the threat was able to slither away without so much as leaving a single body behind to identify them. So much for the wall guard.  
  
Avrialle guardsmen come rushing out of the barracks to comb the scene, yelling at the humans to stand back. There's no sign of what has done this, but they all know, even if they don't speak the name aloud. It's one thing to hear about the attacks, but to bear witness to it puts it in finer detail for the members of Starfleet who look on at the devastation, Will and Picard among them, Wesley likely somewhere along the wall being charged with securing the perimeter.   
  
Will can't do anything but look on, and that sets a cold shiver down his back that turns his veins to ice. These people are helpless to these attacks, and it's clear now that they're not lying, even if all the pieces don't fit together in perfect order. He looks at Picard, true fear in his eyes, but he sets his jaw, and says nothing, eyeing his captain for longer than he should before turning back to the scene.  
  
"We have a survivor!" an avrialle guard shouts, and that puts a fire under Picard and Will, who can't help but get involved even if they're outnumbered and dwarfed by the rest of the guard.   
  
Coming around the corner of the destroyed carriage, Will witnesses the guards pulling a dead avrialle off of a young woman and helping her to her feet-- and he recognizes her in an instant as Joanna. Her eyes are wide and wild, her entire body drenched in so much blood that it's impossible to tell how much of it is hers and how much belonged to the body that had been draped on top of her. The front of her dress is being held up by one of her secondary arms, the other one visibly broken with bone protruding from her pearly skin, the neckline of her dress destroyed by two long slashes that cut through the delicate fabric and her flesh like butter. She's sobbing, shaking, she doesn't even seem to see Will as she's carefully escorted towards the wall.  
  
"Is that the princess?" Picard murmurs in shock, watching as she's half-carried past them towards the gate, already being lifted up into the air to allow everyone to pass back through. Despite how injured she is, she's being moved along very quickly, with a guard posted at every tunnel entrance, his gun pointed down into the hole just daring a daerelich to return.  
  
"Yes, that was Princess Joanna." Will says, that cold feeling's only gotten worse. "She was trying to leave the city..." he looks back at the carriage and pieces start to fall into place for him. "She must have been leaving with the professor."  
  
"Professor?" Picard's voice is demanding. "What do you know, Number One?"  
  
"Things we shouldn't be talking about in front of the rest of the avrialle," Will says, his expression going stony. "I didn't mention it before because... you told me not to meddle in their affairs, sir."  
  
"And yet you meddled?" Picard's voice raises slightly.   
  
"I didn't tell her to do anything she wasn't already going to do." WIll says, a degree of shame in his voice.  
  
"What did you _do_, Number One?" Picard is just about shouting now.  
  
Will's face wrinkles into a frown and he raises his voice, "I encouraged her to follow her heart. She wanted to go to college, so I told her she should. That isn't wrong-- she wanted to go."  
  
"Am I to believe that this girl has now been cut to ribbons by the daerelich because you couldn't withstand the opportunity just once not to be someone's _personal hero_?" Picard shouts back, and louder.   
  
"Sir, I--"  
  
"If she was going to make that decision, she needed to make it on her own!" Picard cuts him off. "But you couldn't resist the urge to make sure a pretty girl would remember you forever, could you! We have been on thin ice as it is, how do you plan to explain to her father that his daughter has been slashed apart because of your influence!"  
  
"You're right, we _have_ been on thin ice." Will says, his tone is rough and quiet as he searches Picard's eyes. It's clear he's not talking about the situation with the avrialle. "But this had nothing to do with my _libido_." He takes a step away from Picard, "I just thought that she should be treated like a _person_, sir."  
  
"I will see you at the throne room in two hours," Picard says coldly, electing not to address any of what Will just said, and even less of what he implied. "If you aren't there, I'll have you dragged there by force."  
  
"I'll be there, sir," Will replies curtly, then turns on his heel and leaves Picard standing there.  
  
As he approaches the gate, Joanna is being loaded into a horse-drawn ambulance by two nurses, neither of whom attempt to stop Will from climbing on board and fitting himself into a corner. He's so small he takes up barely any room compared to their size, so he's able to situate himself up near Joanna's head, while one nurse tends to her cuts, and the other begins the process of setting the bone in her arm.   
  
Joanna's head tips back and she focuses hazy pink eyes on Will. She says nothing, but her eyes fill with tears, and finally she breaks through the shock enough to cry as she reaches out her uninjured arm towards him, desperate for contact with another living person that doesn't hurt.  
  
Will takes her hand, "Joanna...I'm sorry this happened to you." it's not much, but it's all he can do. "It'll be alright. Everything will be okay."  
  
"My father," she whimpers. "He's going to _kill me_."  
  
It strikes him all at once that despite just being in a life-threatening daerelich attack in which she was the only survivor, an attack that has left her both broken and bloodied-- the thing she's afraid of the most is her own father.  
  
"I'm sorry, Joanna. I'll take the blame-- it's my fault that you're in this situation," Will tries again. "If he's going to punish anyone, it should be me."  
  
She holds his hand until the pain gets to be too much and she passes out, but the nurses assure him that her pulse is strong. He has to leave her at the hospital in order to make his way back to the castle, with shame and fear and anger all forming a horrible, heavy ball in his stomach.   
  
The general mood in the ballroom is anguish, when Will arrives. Picard is already there, as well as the rest of the senior officers. The queen is in her seat, sobbing into her hands, while the king paces in front of them all. When Will finally joins the ranks, holding himself with dignity, the king finally addresses them.   
  
"Does anyone want to tell me WHY my eldest daughter was leaving the city in a stagecoach with the Dean of Whitehall University?!" he roars, his tail thrashing with such anger that if it were to hit any one of them, it would shatter ribs.  
  
Will walks straight across the floor and stands in front of the king, his posture strong with his chin lifted, "Because I told her to," he says, "Because she deserves better than to end up getting her tail cut off and wasting her brilliance on being the plaything of some self-important avrialle male who feels he's entitled to owning her."  
  
"And what gives YOU the right to make decisions about MY daughter's future!" Albert snarls, looming over Riker, more than double his height. "She lies now in a hospital bed because you put a wild thought in her head that she could be something she isn't! Something she will never be!"   
  
"Your majesty, I believe we have had enough overtures of hostility for one day," Picard says, speaking up with enough authority in his voice that it sends the king back into pacing, no longer leering over Will like he wants to break him in half. "Commander Riker is in my command, which means anything that he has done is my responsibility. I did not impose upon him deeply enough the importance of keeping his toe in line."  
  
"So you take the blame for this?" Albert whirls on Picard. "What happens if my daughter DIES because of this man, you'll accept the charges of that as well?"  
  
"I will," Picard keeps his chin up without looking at Will. "It is part of being Captain. Knowing I cannot control the actions of every member of my crew, and taking the fall for them regardless."  
  
WIll knows better than to open his claptrap. He stands at military rest, and watches the exchange, his eyes hard. It's hard to gauge what Picard's angle is in doing this for his sake. His earlier comments about 'pretty girls' remembering him 'forever' still sit like a heavy weight in Will's heart. They've been going back and forth, hot and cold for so long, that Picard's kindnesses are beginning to lose all meaning in the absolute hellfire that has been his wrath.  
  
"I think it best if your crew leaves our planet ahead of schedule," Albert says coldly.  
  
"Agreed," Picard says. "I only ask that you give my crew time to regroup and say their goodbyes to whomever they've grown close to in our time here."  
  
"Tomorrow morning, then," Albert says.   
  
"We will depart tomorrow morning," Picard nods.   
  
Without being dismissed, he turns and parades the rest of the officers out of the throne room as Albert leaves through a door at the back, without even attempting to comfort his sobbing wife. Deanna gives a look back over her shoulder at Victoria, but she jogs up to catch with Will, her skirts bouncing. She catches him by the arm, concern heavy in her black eyes as the rest of the officers continue on ahead.   
  
"Will," she says softly. "What _happened?"_  
  
Will turns as he's leaving, brought around by her touch, and he searches her face with his gaze, which soon is pulled tight, his brows knit, eyes watery. "I messed up."  
  
"It's going to be alright, Will," she says softly. "You and the captain have been through worse, together. We all have. It'll be okay, you'll see."  
  
Will smiles, but for once it doesn't meet his eyes, and that scares Deanna, "I wish I could believe that."  
  
She squeezes his arm, frowning. "You still haven't talked to him about whatever happened with Marduk, have you?"  
  
"He doesn't want to talk about it," Will says quietly, pulling away from her. "So there's nothing to talk about."  
  
"I don't believe that," Deanna says firmly, coming around in front of him to halt his path. "I sense pain, and desperation from him. I think if you tried, he might talk to you-- isn't it worth it to try?"  
  
"Deanna, you don't know what happened," Will says sharply, but he still sounds defeated. "I just want to put it behind me."  
  
"I can _guess_," Deanna says, her voice just as sharp. "I'm not an idiot, Will. I can tell how you two feel about one another. You're hurt, he's hurt-- and neither of you are doing anything about it. You can't go on like this forever, there are things unsaid between you and something is going to break if one of you doesn't first."  
  
"What am I supposed to do? Tell him how much he hurt my feelings? You know Jean Luc as well I do... he shuts off." Will takes another step away from her.  
  
"Will," she says softly, reaching out to cup his face in one palm. "I know you're hurting, but think about what just happened. The captain just cut this mission short by half, a mission that was given to him by Starfleet Command directly, in order to protect you from whatever retalliation the king had planned for you. Maybe I don't know him quite as well as you do, but that... doesn't seem like shutting down to me."  
  
Will's brows crumple and he looks down at her with a conflicted expression, laying his hand over hers, "I'll talk to him, Deanna. Okay? I'll talk to him."  
  
She just nods, and releases his arm, letting him go free. He has a great deal to think about, and as concerned as she is, he doesn't need her hovering.   
  
As he wanders the castle grounds, he thinks back to what brought them to these crossroads to begin with. The mysterious entity known as "Marduk" who, obsessed with the idea that all humans were liars, held the Starfleet crew under duress and forced them to tell truths about themselves they'd never admitted before.   
  
In the weeks since, Will still finds himself having nightmares about the way that formless entity vanished the crew away one by one when it didn't find their "truths" compelling enough, until he was the only one left, believing his entire crew and all his friends to be dead. He'd never felt quite so helpless before, quite so powerless to stand up to a force bigger and greater than him.   
  
Much like how Picard must be feeling, right about now.   
  
And yet still, he can't shake the feeling of being punished. Not for his actions, here on this planet, but for what had transpired between them following the incident with Marduk. They swing between moments of friendship, and horrible punishing wrath, usually leveled at Will by Picard, and he can figure on why he's doing it. It's safer to keep WIll at arm's length, or to even level a blow to knock him down a peg or two, to remind him of his place.   
  
Jean Luc can be cold and unyielding, Will has seen it many times in the past, but he's never been on the recieving end in quite this way.   
  
It's that sort of cold professionalism that has seen the Enterprise through many hardships, but that same professionalism has led them into hardship as well, at times, but Picard is too set in his ways to learn a lesson, and if it's easier to turn someone away than to face the facts of what's happened, he will likely continue on that course into oblivion.   
  
But still, he took a blow for Will, and that says something about his captain's state of mind.   
  
Will circles back around to the gardens, and steps up to the fountain to look down into the clear, cool water to try and relax but he catches sight of a spot of red among all the greenery, and when he looks up, there's his captain, slouched over on a bench with his head in his hands, looking as though he regrets every second of what just happened.  
  
The first officer takes a seat beside him, sitting a polite distance away and sighs, "I would ask if you're okay, but that seems pretty worthless in this situation." Will rubs his hand over his face. "You and I need to talk... about what happened. We can't just keep going on like this, you know it as well as I do."  
  
Picard sighs heavily, but as much as his entire body rejects the idea of talking about it, he knows what Will is saying is true. Sitting upright, he levels his back with the bench and gives Will a tired, defeated look.   
  
"And what would you have me say?" he says, though there's very little fire or venom in his voice. "What could I say that you have not already been able to intuit?"  
  
"Can't we just go back to the way things used to be?" Will murmurs. "I'm willing to leave everything that happened between us behind, go back to being friends....workmates. Whatever you need, but you can't keep punishing me for a moment of weakness."  
  
"I am not _punishing_ you," Picard says, standing up abruptly from the bench, looking like he's preparing to flee, and leave Will high and dry yet again.   
  
"Then what do you call it?" Will asks, his voice still calm, but there's an edge of sadness to it. "Every time things start to feel normal again, you shut me down. What, I can't even be friendly with you anymore?"  
  
"I am punishing _myself_," Picard replies, his voice hard, standing in front of the bench rigidly on the spot. "The reason we are in this mess is because I indulged in a lapse of self control, one that I must keep a very tight leash on from here on out. If I allow myself to become too friendly with you again, I may _lapse_ a second time. I regret that this decision has come down hard on you, I meant you no harm. As much as I might like to blame this on you, I was the one who failed to push you away when I should have."  
  
"If it would make things easier," Will gets to his feet. "I can ask Starfleet for a transfer. They've been digging their teeth into me to take my own command for years now, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find an opening."  
  
Those words hit Picard like an ice pick to the chest. His expression remains as even and stoic as ever, but his heart starts to pound in his chest, and his breathing increases as he meets and hold's Will's eye.   
  
"I suppose I have no reason to ask you to stay," he says, his voice rough. "Save for my own selfish wishes."  
  
Will looks as though he may cry, but he doesn't. He steps in closer, yet doesn't touch his captain. "Why are they selfish? You deserve happiness as much as anyone else."  
  
"Because I cannot ask of you what Starfleet would demand of me," Picard says, his voice lowering, his jaw flexing, and his very soul shuddering.  
  
"I'd gladly step down as first officer if it meant you and I could be together," Will says.  
  
Yet another point-blank shot to Picard's chest. He searches Will's face for a moment, and for just one second it looks like he might yield to the idea. Ever since Marduk forced it out of him weeks ago that he was attracted to his own first officer, something he'd held very close to the vest for years, things had spiraled wildly out of control.   
  
The idea of being with Will made his heart throb and his head spin. But the idea of willfully shattering his career just to do it? Unthinkable.   
  
"Out of the question," he says, waving a hand and putting some distance between himself and Will, desperate to get some air in his lungs instead of the intoxicating smell of his first officer. "I will not be responsible for the end of your career's upward mobility indefinitely. Starfleet would have your ass over a fire if they heard you were demoted, after they've been trying for so long to get you to take your own command."  
  
"When we get back to the starbase, I'll put in my paperwork for transfer." Will says, straightening his back to stand upright, his hands shaking until he balls them into fists. "Clearly you can't or won't let me be your lover, your friend or your first officer anymore, so I have no choice."  
  
Picard gives Will a wounded look with only his eyes, emotion clouding in those grey hues. But he can think of nothing to say. The truth is he wants to keep Will around only for the pleasure of having him there-- but not so close that it becomes challenging keeping his composure around him. Close enough but not too close, kept in the perfect little goldilocks zone for Picard's withered old heart. Or, the alternate option is to let him take the demotion so that Starfleet won't scrutinize their relationship-- and then live forever with the fact that he knocked Will Riker down to his knees just for the comfort of _having_ him.   
  
There is no good ending, here. He should have known that when he accepted Will's kiss the first time. He should have known better. He should have pushed him away so they could have been at comfortable arm's distance, but they could have stayed there forever.   
  
"Very well," is all he says. "I wish you happiness."  
  
Will looks at him for longer than a few heartbeats, and then just nods. "Sir."   
  
He then turns back toward the path leading out of the garden and heads back into the castle, through the antehall. As he walks through the halls, hardly noticing where he's going, he keeps his head held high but there's tears in his eyes. He can't quite shake the look that Picard had given him; Wounded and yearning, but he knows that Jean Luc is not the type of man who would allow himself comforts, so against WIll's better judgment he'd left him standing there alone, in the garden, when all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around him and find a way for things to work.   
  
He can only hope that someday, when he's far off on the other side of the universe and Picard is sailing the stars in the flagship, that maybe they can be friends again.


End file.
